Tent Caterpillar ?

[Autocar]

Last week I saw in our local paper about a invasion of tent caterpillars in the towns east side . six inches deep in places along foundations of homes. After church today I had a detour and it took me to this area. There use to be a paper mill on this site and over the years it has grown thick with trees. Every leaf was gone every blade of grass Ive never seen anything like it before. It was like a brown sean of winter if that makes any sence.It almost looked like the veins were the only thing left on the trees it look like nothing I have ever seen in my life time. Home owners said they ate bushes, plants almost everything. The paper mil property is around twenty some acres where this took place. Here at home we have had a bunch of worms also there eating hickory tree leaves and the crap will cover our cement driveway in about two days. Ive seen them here other years but this year there are thousands of them.

[submarinesailor]

During my drive back from Cincinnati Friday, I noticed all a long I71, I70, I79 and I68 the trees were loaded with tent caterpillars.  I was very surprised with the numbers of them.

Bruce

[SPIKER]

last week a million+ went into the fire pit @ my place & those were the easy to get ones...
bout as bad as I have seen them last year or two

Mark

[thecfarm]

We had something like that attack the Red Oak trees about 45 minutes from me about 10 years ago,I think. Looked real odd to see the trees with no leaves. But was only that one year. Seemed to be only in one area.

[Sprucegum]

They go through the poplars here about every 10 years or so. Sometimes for three years in a row and then some of the trees die from the stress of being naked all summer.

[GeneH]

In my area they build in the wild cherry and crabapples every year. They strip quite a bit in the spring, but the trees survive. It has to slow down the growth some, don't you think?

[Den Socling]

I've seen that kind of damage around here but earlier in the summer. The culprit here is Gypsy Moth Caterpillars. I've seen them so thick on roads that you had to be careful in driving around turns. Slippery!

[SwampDonkey]

We had the army worms here back in the 80's for 3 years running. They emerge early  with the leafing of the aspen trees. They strip them out of leaves, then the worms go into moth stage and the aspen leaves come back out the same summer. They were real bad, the houses had them crawling on the foundations and the train would slip on the tracks as the worms (caterpillar) crawled on the rails. They also go into the old apple orchard and ruined the quality of the apples. Brought in some disease I suspect. But, probably stress to. They were old apple trees. The size of the apples from then on were much reduced. The worms huddled in masses in the trees and that is what killed them in the end from disease and parasites.