Attractive Ringed Cocoonworm

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

The ringed cocoonworm, which lives almost everywhere, is very partial to fruit trees. In addition, he often attacks oak with linden, elm with poplar and all kinds of shrubs. And the most favorite delicacy of this pest is considered to be oaks and apple trees. Caterpillars are most harmful - younger caterpillars actively skeletonize leaves, and older individuals eat delicate leaves, leaving only central veins. Of course, this cute pest must be fought

Meet the pest

The ringed cocoonworm is an incredibly attractive butterfly with yellowish front wings equipped with two transverse ribbons. As for the hind wings, they are slightly lighter in these parasites. Males are usually smaller than females: their wingspan reaches about 32 mm, while the wingspan of females is about 40 mm. The body of annelids is covered with yellow hairs. And on the tips of the abdomen in males, you can see small tassels of hairs. The oral apparatus of pests is underdeveloped, and their antennae are usually comb-like.

The gray cylindrical eggs of annelids are covered with rather hard and dense shells and reach a diameter of about 3 mm. And the gray caterpillars growing up to 55 mm in length are covered with soft hairs. Their chair is blue with small black spots; on the sides of the caterpillar's bodies are intermittent blue stripes, and on the dorsal sides of their bodies, white stripes bordered with orange strokes can be seen. The pupae are about 40 mm long. They are black in color with sparse reddish hairs and are located in dense double yellow spiderweb cocoons.

Almost fully formed caterpillars overwinter in dense egg shells. And the beginning of their revival falls on the stage of budding. The duration of this period is on average from ten to sixteen days - as a rule, the revival of caterpillars is completed before the apple trees begin to bloom. The hatched caterpillars stick together, crawling in search of food in bizarre cobweb "paths" - these "paths" are laid by pests on the bark of branches. By the way, they eat mainly in the evenings and at night, but if it is cold at night, they may well eat in the daytime. In general, the development of harmful caterpillars lasts from twenty five to fifty days (depending on weather conditions). During this time period, they manage to shed four to five times and pass from five to six centuries. At the end of each molt, the caterpillars equip new spider nests.

Caterpillars that have reached their last age spread and pupate approximately in the first or second decade of June. Pupation of gluttonous parasites takes place in cocoons located between two or three leaves tightened by a cobweb. However, such cocoons can be found not only in bushes, but also on the grass or in cracks in the bark. In the pupal stage, harmful parasites stay from fourteen to sixteen days. In the last decade of June, the years of butterflies in the forest-steppe begin, and their mass years can be observed already in July. Butterflies, flying in the evenings and at night, do not feed, and already on the second or third day after mating, they lay eggs, placing them around thin branches in a spiral. Each egg-laying counts from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty eggs.

Females usually live from seven to nine days, and males only about five days. Caterpillars formed in egg membranes enter diapause until the next year. Annular cocoon-moths are characterized by one-year generation.

How to fight

Young caterpillars, in case of their small number, should be destroyed by cutting off the branches inhabited by them and burning these branches together with the cocoons located on them.

If, during the period of mass revival of caterpillars, one or two egg-laying falls on each tree, the trees begin to be treated with insecticides or biological products.