Looks, as the old saying goes, can be deceiving. This useful advice is certainly applicable to all the flying nocturnal visitors in the past weeks who are showing up in the home landscape and garden plots.
Those small, nondescript moths which flit around the porch light are busy doing more than decorating car grills under the cover of darkness. They are also leaving tiny eggs which hatch into a plethora of caterpillars.
These writhing, larval-state insects arrive in a variety of colors, sizes and textures. This fact has caused a longstanding problem for those who are attempting to recognize a specific insect group, beneficial or destructive, based on its immature state.
Sometimes the wiggling defoliators are not caterpillars. The sawfly’s larvae are frequently mistaken for a caterpillar, and sawflies in panhandle Florida are native insects with a well-deserved reputation for destructive behavior.
Blackheaded Pine Sawfly larvae may appear as caterpillars, but they eat pines and cedars. Left unchecked, they can kill these trees common to the area.
To entomologists, those people who spend their careers studying insects and other crawly creatures, the term caterpillar has a very specific meaning. Popular culture has converted this term into a brand, cartoons, and most tubular shaped bugs located on shrubs.
Technically speaking, only the larvae of butterflies and moths, members of the order Lepidoptera, are correctly classified as caterpillars. Among the more obvious characteristics are five or fewer pairs of pro-legs, those appendages extending from the base of its body.
Other traits include Y or V shaped cleavage lines on the head and a complex eye with six stemmata, for those who wish to look closer. There are other even smaller and specific identifiers, but these are often left to be assessed by professionals.
There are numerous sawfly species found in North America. The redheaded pine sawfly, Neodiprion lecontei, and the blackheaded pine sawfly, Neodiprion excitans, are found in north Florida and are native to the United States, being found primarily east of the Great Plains and north into Canada.
Though similar in appearance to caterpillars, sawfly larvae have six pro-legs and simple eyes with only two stemmata. As their name implies, they do have a red or black head and they are commonly found on pine trees.
These pine sawfly species are two of many sawfly species worldwide, including 35 in its specific genus. The term sawfly comes from the saw-like ovipositor which females use to deposit their eggs.
For the timber and landscape industry, this species is an economically important defoliator of commercially grown pines. Unfortunately, its feeding and reproductive environments are enhanced in monocultures of shortleaf, loblolly, and slash pine, all of which are commonly cultivated in the southern United States.
Adults are easily overlooked, being less than half an inch in length. The emerging larvae are usually the first sign a problem exists.
An adult female creates slits in a pine needle and lays one egg per slit. Needles which have eggs laid in them look spotted or banded with alternating green and yellow patches.
In approximately four weeks, larvae emerge and feed on the pine needles in large gregarious groups. In approximately four more weeks, larvae drop to the ground below the tree they were feeding on and begin to spin cocoons in the leaf litter or top layer of soil.
Young, open-growing pine trees less than 15 feet tall are especially vulnerable. While pines are preferred, larvae will feed on a cedar if the favored food source is exhausted.
A large infestation is capable of completely stripping small pine trees of foliage. Younger larvae eat the outer edges of pine needles, leaving behind the central tissue which wilts and dies. This creates the appearance of dried straw, making sawfly damage distinctive.
Older larvae eat the entire needle, and if complete defoliation occurs, groups of larvae will move to the nearest acceptable food source and continue feeding. When foliage becomes scarce, larvae will even feed on the soft bark tissue of defoliated trees.
Control methods are available, but an early start is the key to minimizing damage.
These larval mimics are active now in the area and can cause problems for caterpillar proof pines. It seems nothing is completely safe.
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