Eastern Tent Caterpillar
It’s been a bad year for tent caterpillars here. This could be because of the very mild winter we had. Our children just love these little caterpillars and will spend hours playing with them. It brings back memories of my own childhood, as I loved them to! I was always out catching bugs to look at.
A few weeks ago our girls decided they would try to raise some of the caterpillars until they turned into butterfly’s. I explained to them that these caterpillars turn into a moth, not a butterfly. They decided that even though they wouldn’t be as “pretty” as the Painted Lady butterfly’s we raised a few years ago, they wanted to try anyway. The butterfly photo in my site header is from one that we raised back then!
They picked out a few caterpillars of different sizes to put in their bug jar. Then each was promptly named. 
Every day they would pick a few leaves off our fruit trees to feed their new pets. While they will eat any tree leaves, fruit is their favourite.
About a week later our oldest dd, came running to me in excitement. The largest caterpillar had split its skin and crawled out. Very cool! Not much longer, maybe a week at most we had a new discovery. Two of them had made chrysalis! They should take about 2 weeks to hatch as moths. We have about 7 days left to wait. Yes the kids are checking many times a day to see if they have come out yet!
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What color are the moths? Interesting!
columbine53 recently posted..Tent Caterpillars ~ Nature Study
The moths are gray with a wide head. My mom says they are bad up north this year. I saw one nest in a tree down the road from here. We haven’t had issues with tent caterpillars in almost 20 years here. I remember the last time they covered the apple trees at my in-laws house. My husband and his dad spent a lot of time out there burning the nests.
Wendy recently posted..Tent Caterpillars ~ Nature Study
A lot of people here burn them as well, we used to as well. Now I put vegetable oil in a spray bottle and use that to spray the nests. It kills them quickly and doesn’t leave black burned nest all over the tree. lol But we found it worked great, we live in a windy spot and the little torches blow out easily.
The moths are brown/grey. If you click on the tent caterpillar link in the post it goes to the wiki article with a photo.
One year hubby tried burning the nests and almost started the tree on fire. So be careful. I pull the nests apart with my hands or a stick. Didn’t think of oil. We were very fortunate this year not to have an overabundance of tent caterpillars. But other insects are making up for it. Anyone need any ticks?
columbine53 recently posted..Tent Caterpillars ~ Nature Study
LOL, no ticks thank you!
What a great homeschool project. I don’t think we have issues with those kinds of caterpillars here on the west coast.
And Cindy, we don’t need ticks for sure LOL. Just be very careful as they could carry Lyme disease.
Connie recently posted..Garden Photos
Yes it would depend on the type of trees in your area to. They prefer fruit trees, but I’ve seen them on poplar as well. They don’t eat pines, or other needle type trees.
There is always something here for the kids to study!