What one day is a quaint set of trees can quickly turn...ugly. Watch this progression of photos (or click here for a more detailed set of shots). When you get closer to one of the tree trees you see that it is covered in webbing at its roots.
Then you walk to the next tree and see that some hapless bicyclist's mode of transportation has fallen victim to said webbing.
And then you look under the bicycle's seat...and you know you'll never ride again without first looking under your seat.
Anyone know what this phenomenon is?
Thanks for the link, Katie. Photo source: laverna
What ARE those larvae? Did this happen overnight? Can someone read Danish? I don't want to that happen anywhere NEAR my bicycle!
ReplyDeleteUrrgh! They're webworms! Actually a type of moth caterpillar, they will swarm your trees and strip off all the foliage. I've never seen them shroud a trunk like that before, but then, I've never seen them beset a bicycle, either.
ReplyDeleteThis happened in somewhere like Sweden sometime like in 2005 - these photos were viral for a while... Still creepy, though.
ReplyDeleteyeah, webworms or tentworms...horrid things.
ReplyDeleteGAH! *flails*
ReplyDeleteTorn between repulsion and fascination...Can't look again or I won't eat lunch...
*desperately hits back button repeatedly*
Go go go go!
We get webworms/tentworms big time in Arkansas, usually in persimmon trees but elsewhere also. They are kinda oogly, but they turn into beautiful...moths. However, if you can curb your revulsion, when the critters are at their biggest and juiciest, cut out the web and collect them in a can or bucket, and use them for the BEST DANG crappie and bream bait you've seen. They take forever to drown, and WIGGLE like, well, a caterpillar on a fishook.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, no way that was done to that bike overnight. Probably more like two or three. ;-)
God, I hate those things! If it's quiet outside, you can hear their droppings pattering down like raindrops.
ReplyDeleteShudder!
They look like tentworms. We have them in the woods here in MI. They don't do this over night, its more like a few days. But yes they will cover anything that is touching the tree. They will kill the tree and all surronding trees\plants.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tent-caterpillar.com/1-eastern-tent-caterpillar.htm
Hella gnarls. I might chalk that bike up as lost.
ReplyDeleteCicada got nothing!
ReplyDeleteWe call 'em tent caterpillars, and we get them on tree branches here in the south. YUCK.
ReplyDeleteWe get outbreaks of them all the way up here in Canada too. I've heard that in some areas they get so thick that when they move en-mass across a road they can make it slick with their smoshed, goopy remains.
ReplyDeleteNICE! ;)
If you go into the "here" link to see more photos (and you should--un-fricking-believable) and then go into the "more info about these caterpillars" link at the top, it gives more info and a first-hand account of living in this mess. The writer says that after the caterpillars turned into moths, the trees recovered quickly. So. Very. Gross. And fascinating....
ReplyDeleteLooks like the local predators haven't been doing their job properly.
ReplyDeleteFun to walk under, heh heh. I think lots of anything is really ugly. Even bunnies.
ReplyDeleteRemember my mom telling me about a frog migration across the highway she was travelling. Yick! Yick! Yick!,
And they don't always take the tunnels conservationists build.
AHHHHHHHHH, yuck.
ReplyDeleteI dunno why but I'm kinda itchy all of a sudden.
I don't think I will lean against a tree a tree for a while now *shudder*
ReplyDeleteI want to take a big handful of those and throw them at somebody.
ReplyDeleteWe used to do that as kids, actually, take a BIG handful of 'em and CHUNK them at someone. But actually, it doesn't work out so well, because no matter how hard you throw, they HANG ON to your fingers. And crawl around between them. And jump in your hair. And down your shirt.
ReplyDeleteJane, don't you LOVE living in the south? I do! :-)
Oh, gaaah. "And down your shirt".
ReplyDelete*has mild heart attack*
Euurgh, I can't read these comments anymore.
They just make me twitch.
Okay, the creepiest thing to me is that they seem to be dropping from the roofs in some of the pictures. I wonder how long it takes them to get an infestation like that.
ReplyDeleteit takes about 5 or 6 days for the little stupid eggs to hatch and to turn into that infestation kelly...well, in my experience at least. and yes, they do fall, all the time...you can hear them falling in the night, and if you dare eat outside they'll fall into your food.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing happened to a tree in my local park (Glasgow,Scotland) a year ago. I have photos of the tree in various stages of infestation. That unfortunately are not online (yet). The park ranger told me it was the work of the Ermine Moth
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermine_moth