Worms eating pine needles

[GATreeGrower]

Anybody seen these things before?  They appear to really enjoy pine needles

  

  

 

[SwampDonkey]

I'm thinking some kind of sawfly. The larvae will have 6 or more pairs of prolegs. These are the ones on the back end of the larvae. The first 3 pairs toward the head will be the true legs like those on any insect when they become adults. I'm seeing at least 6 pairs of prolegs on those.

[GATreeGrower]

Could it be tip moth larvae?

[WDH]

I think that is exactly what they are. 

[GATreeGrower]

Those things are giving us a very hard time.  I've seen them hitting slash and lob the past two years

[GATreeGrower]

Only known them to bother loblolly

[SwampDonkey]

They are red headed pine sawfly I think. Neodiprion lecontei (Fitch)  Affect longleaf and slash pine.

Figure 9 shows a photo on this site.

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/trees/sawfly/pine_sawflies.htm

[caveman]

I find them from time to time eating the needles of slash, loblolly and longleaf pines.  Occasionally, they will kill a tree but usually they just eat some needles and move on.  They are pine sawflies. They also make them with black heads and there is an imported variety with a red head.

The pine tip moth damage that I have seen will usually kill the terminal bud or lateral bud on a relatively young tree and the tip will bend at about 70° to 80°.  I am not a forester and they could probably tell you better. 

I had to really hunt for some pine sawflies last week to show my high school class (5 mile walk to find any).

[GATreeGrower]

Red headed sawflies aren't those very bad?

There's about 12 acres with 50 or so trees chewed on (that you can see from the road around it)...should I be concerned?

[WDH]

The danger zone is when the trees are between about 3' and 12' tall.  After that, they grow out of the danger zone.  Here is a pretty good article from Auburn University.

http://www.ag.auburn.edu/enpl/bulletins/redheadedpinesawfly/redheadedpinesawfly.htm

[caveman]

Thank you WDH for the Auburn link on sawflies. 

[GATreeGrower]

Thank you both.  I think these are the flies that bite you through your shirt when you're on the tractor in the woods.  They sound like a buzzsaw.

[WDH]

I hate that when it happens. 

[SwampDonkey]

Biggest scare here is spruce budworm. But mostly if you have old trees or trees suffering to begin with. Young trees will come through unless it's a very serious onslaught.