Oregon Pine White Outbreak featured on PBS show.....

[McClung Dale]

Mike,

A few years ago, beginning in 1995 and going to 1997, in the Tampa, FL, area we had a similar "outbreak" of forest tent caterpillars, Malacosoma disstria, feeding on oak trees. The common name for the adult is simply Forest tent caterpillar moth. They're there every year, but usually in relatively small numbers so that you hardly notice them until they climb down from the trees to look for a sheltered cranny to form a cocoon in.

The oak trees, we have several in the yard, were populated with so many caterpillars you could hear them communally munching the leaves and the frass falling sounded like a gentle rain. Like the pine white, this is cyclical every 6 to 16 years. We're due again soon.

In 1997 when the caterpillars reached maturity, all at about the same time, they en mass retreated from the trees to the ground in such numbers the news programs were running stories assuring the public this was normal and harmless, but our sidewalks had become a slimy mess. You could not take a step without crushing one in many places. There were millions of caterpillars crawling up the sides of buildings to the point they coated the building face including my house.

Dale McClung

On Feb 3, 2012, at 1:09 PM, Mike Quinn wrote:

> Nice piece on the current massive butterfly outbreak going on in the Pacific Northwest.
> 
> One thing missing was a mention that all the larvae drop a load of frass, so to speak...
> 
> Mike Quinn, Austin
> ________________
> Texas Entomology
> http://texasento.net
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: James, David G <david_james at wsu.edu>
> Date: Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 10:59 AM
> Subject: Oregon Pine White Outbreak featured on PBS show.....
> To: "leps-l at lists.yale.edu" <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
> 
> 
> The recent outbreak of Pine Whites (Neophasia menapia) in central Oregon was featured on 'Oregon Wild' which aired on PBS in the PNW last night.
> 
>  
> 
> You can catch it online here : http://www.opb.org/programs/ofg
> 
>  
> 
> Some cool footage shown including ponds white with , well, whites… also 'blizzard' shots and helicopter windshields smeared with butterflies…..
> 
>  
> 
> It was only a few years ago that Dave Nunnallee and I struggled to find wild immature stages of N. menapia for our book "Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies"
> 
> Ironically (to me anyway), the PBS program found them everywhere and even suggested that substantial damage had been caused to pines by Pine White caterpillars.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Dr David G James
> 
> Associate Professor of Entomology,
> 
> Washington State University,
> 
> Prosser, Washington 99350
> 
> USA
> 
>  
> 
> 



 
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