Trees covered with caterpillars [May 24, 2009]

A ghost tree, spotted in the Amsterdamse Bos on Saturday. A group of four trees were entirely covered by dense grey cobweb containing thousands and thousands of caterpillars.

A bit of web searching reveals these to be the caterpillars of the ermine moth, or hyponomeuta padellus. The trees are not damaged and spring back into life when the caterpillars have gone.

Readers' comments

Place your comments: