Posted on 06/21/2005 4:12:09 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
......................''It's a very huge outbreak," Joseph Elkinton, an entomologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said yesterday. ''The main thing going on is winter moths. Most of the defoliation you see on the South Shore and on Cape Cod is winter moths, and that caterpillar has finished its feeding."
......The infestation is not as severe in the Boston area as it is to the south, and it is not quite as bad as in the 1980s, when gypsy moth caterpillars were more widespread and were found everywhere from sidewalks to screen doors.
Robert Childs, also an entomologist at UMass-Amherst, said this year's outbreak brought varieties of caterpillars he has never seen before.
New this year is the infestation of winter moth caterpillars, which was found in coastal towns from Gloucester to Boston and throughout Southeastern Massachusetts.
It looks like a green inchworm, and some people mistook it for a cankerworm. But unlike some more familiar caterpillars, the pest is not likely to be offset here by natural causes, such as a bird that considers it food. Researchers are still working on ways to control the large number of winter moth caterpillars in the region.
Last month, for example, hundreds of small flies, raised on a mixture of sports drink and hummingbird nutrient, were released in Wompatuck State Park in Hingham.
The parasitic fly, a natural enemy of the winter moth, was expected to destroy more than 200,000 of the billions of moths out there, specialists said.
This year's infestation also includes at least four perennials: the gypsy moth, a blue-spotted pest that likes oak leaves; the native three-legged cankerworm, which likes to munch on maples in the spring and summer; and the forest and Eastern tent caterpillars, .................
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
I used to go to Mass a lot. During the first Reagan election everyone but the elite, politicians and professors, were for Reagan though you would never know it unless you were there.
Excellent profile page and a great looking family.
We had a 17-year locust infestation back in 1996. Creepiest thing I ever heard/saw.
What ever Ted is drinking at the moment.
We had 17 year cicadas last year here in Maryland.
Don't drive after doing it though, Ted alone is 200 proof.
We are having a MAJOR gypsy moth infestation here in Pike County, PA - - northern part of the Poconos. All the oak trees are stripped bare as are some of the maple trees in our yard. Nearby there is nothing green at all except for the mountain laurel which is in full bloom.
Thank you.
Mass is definitely a stronghold for Professors & elitist snobs with all the colleges & universities. The liberal catholic and union types have a lock on eastern Mass as well, but "out west" where I grew up, a Reagan campaign banner was much more common than that of the opposition.
In 1997 they hit Ohio pretty hard. Along the Ohio Turnpike most of the oaks were bare in early July...most re-foliated by fall but it seemed like it took a good 2-3 growing seasons for them to return to normal.
Well let's just point them to Ted Kennedy-after they feast on him they'll leave the trees alone...
Talk about giving one the heebie-jeebies. They sound and look like they're from outer space.
Bawney Frank prefers catepillars to gerbils anyway.
They are nasty bugs that do some major damage. Thankfully, the trees recover - so I can cut them down later!
The best thing to do is NOTHING. Like everything else in nature, they run in cycles. A few years ago in MD, EVERY Cherry tree was infested with the tentworms (Malacasoma americana and M. disstria). This year, there are almost none. As with all inconviences, deal with it....don't ask the government to fix it - they'll just make it worse.
BTW - Those Cicadas make AWESOME necklaces!
You silly!
Moths eat leaves...maggots eat sh-it!
Thanks for the post.
We've been here for close to three years - up from TX - before that AZ.
We arrived ducking the sniper, shoveling record snow and then experiencing the cicadas.
You're right, "experts" need to back off and let nature take it's course. Like burning areas off now and then.
ROFLMAO!
The LCRA does the same thing at the Lakes....a couple of years after they release *something* into the lakes to CORRECT a problem, that *something* BECOMES the problem.
You'd thing they'd just leave it the heck alone!
Yea I remember the Gypsy Moths invasion from when I was a kid here in MA in the early 80's. It was NASTY! At night you could hear millions of them chomping on leaves. It sounded like it was raining out. We used to have fun by collecting a bunch of them in jars and lighting them on fire. Another fun pastime was stuffing like 50 of em into the sparkplug hole of our lawnmower then starting it up. Also if you tapped them just the right way with your shoe they would make this loud popping noise. Great fun!
Oh yea almost forgot about the wonderful feeling i had while torching their nests with cans of hairspray and a lighter. :)
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