Caterpillars

[Jonzjob]

It's that time of the year again for the wonderful pine processionary caterpillars to go walkabout and find their rest place to turn into            drab moths[:(]. We have had 2 lots of them that seemed to be comming from our garden today. Both lots have now gone to meet their 'firery' maker (I burnt the little baskets!).

We thought that we had got rid of all of the coccoons from our garden, but it seems we missed one and we were treated to a demonstration as to why they are called processionary! Very interesting, but not nice.

To anyone that has not heard of these things they are the caterpillars of the 'pine processionary moth'. The eggs are layed by the female in the Autumn on the lower branches of certain types of pine trees. The eggs look as if a pine needle is completly coated with green fly. They are very weak fliers and can't fly much above 6 or 7 feet high. The eggs hatch (as they wiill do) and the tiny caterpillars climb a bit higher and make a temporary 'coccoon' of their 'silk'. As they get older they climb higher in the birth tree and make larger coccoons, but stilll not permanennt. While they are doing alll of this growing they are eating the needles on the tree. This carries on alll through the winter (note, no capital fpr wineter this time as we are not talking about time! Sorry, anaother thread!!) and they feed even in sub zero temps. They find their way from and to the coccoon by laying a silk tread and pheromone trail and go throughout the tree and the trees nearby in a long line, nose to tail (hence the name).

At about this time of the year the little darlings come out of the trees and cross up to several hundred meters of land to find soft ground to bury themselves in to pupate emerging at the end of summer as moths to lay more eggs, etc.

The problem is that these little things seem to give of a pheromone that attracts dogs and the dogs try to eat them. Not a good idea because the hairs on the caterpillars contain a substance that causes great distress to the animal and, if not treated VERY quickly, will kill it in the most auful way. The tounge and mouth goes gangrenous and the dog dies in great pain.

It don't end there friends. If you touch them then you will probably get very nasty rash on your hands and arms and if the tiny bits of hair get into your eyes it can cause damage there. It can also be very detremental to people with some heart conditions.

Basically they are not nice to have as pets. They cause untold damage to pine trees throughout France and way beyond. sorry Chris PP, but I will not have these in my 'best friends' book.

As a matter of interest, a while back the same subject was on a thread on here and it came up that one of the ways, recomended by the local Mairie, of gettting rid of the caterpillars was to shoot  them! Well,,,, my mind went wild. I had a picture in my mind's eye of French hunters stalking them in their camoflage outfits, and the BRIGHT ORANGE gillets and hats of course, sneaking quitely up with their dogs, with the bells on the collars so they don't get shot, sighting the prey that was quietly munching the trees and blowing the 'merde' out of them. WOW what sport! But it turned out that you were supppossed to shoot the coccoons not the individuals.....

What I would like to know is that when your neighbour blasts the coccoon out of his tree towards your garden, what happens to all the nasty crap of the coccoon, does it just keep on going up or will it, along with the lead shot, finnish up in your garden still in a dangerous state, as now you don't just have some dead caperpillars, which are just as dangerous, but you now have the coccoon spread all over the place too???

On a very serious note. Please keep an eye out for these little buggers, they are very dangerous and should be treated with a lot of respect! From what I can make out the only way to get rid of them is to first trim off the lower branches of your pine trees so the moths can't reach them. Crush any egg collections you find on the needles, if you see one you will notice how different it looks and they are not dangerous at this stage. Cut off and burn any coccoons that you see (the earlier you see them, the lower in the tree they will be).

I'm sorry to have gone on so much, but if you would like to see what they are like then have a look at this site  http://web.cortland.edu/fitzgerald/PineProcessionary.html . There is a bucket load more, just trype in 'pine processionary' on Google to see? A report by a French man J. Henri Fabre at the beginning of the 1900s make interesting reading  too http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/jhf/c04.html

If you see them then please take care!!!

John.

P.S. On a completly different subject. We were walking our chocky lab by the Canal du Midi today, as usual, and we saw an old fella fishing in one of the small riverletts that cross under the canall.So what, well he was catching fish as BIG as about 2 inches long and putting them into his carrier bag. I wonder if the family are on a diet??? No wonder the off shore fishermen are suspected of using small mesh nets. Probably for this blokes dinner?

[Tresco]

Thanks

That was all very helpful, including the links.

The only problem I have is that all my pine trees are babies (8ft or less). I'm beginning to wish we had bever planted any pines.

[Jonzjob]

One advantage of that, you won't have any trouble getting the little sods out of the tops. I had to go about 20 or so feet up a ladder with our super-duper lopper and stretch another 4 meters to get what I thought was the last coccoon!!! Goog game, good game, I think not?

John.