North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Diane Whitehead <voltaire@islandnet.com>]

On 1-Jun-08,  Betty Mayfield wrote:

> During my recent Google search on caterpillars, I found the
> description of the forest tent caterpillar (Malacosome disstria)
> similar to your description.


I remember a really bad outbreak of tent caterpillars about 1944.  
There has not been an equivalent infestation since.  Everything was  
covered with them, and the neighbours all along the street were  
scooping them into containers - the women using tablespoons so they  
wouldn't have to touch them, and the kids just using fingers.  Then  
the boxes of them were tossed into our woodstoves.  Unfortunately,  
ours was burning when my mother tossed them in, and when she went to  
make dinner, there were caterpillars crawling all over the stove.

No, this winter moth is not a local insect.  It is European, but had  
been in Nova Scotia (on the Atlantic coast of Canada) before arriving  
on the Pacific coast, probably on some nursery stock, though it  
wouldn't have been on fruit trees as they have to be fumigated before  
being sent out West.  Of course, someone might have done an illegal  
private importation.

It was devastating because it was new and  there were no predators  
here until they were imported after a number of years of total  
defoliation of all deciduous trees. The leafless trees made it seem as  
though winter went on for a very long time.

Diane Whitehead
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
maritime zone 8, cool Mediterranean climate
mild rainy winters, mild dry summers