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pinksand
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Caterpillar ID

My poor serviceberry tree that's currently only about 3' tall is being decimated by caterpillars. I'll try to post photos later but here's my best description...

1-1.5" long and very stocky build
Horned looking rear end sticks up in the air
Black/dark brown body
Single, thick, bright green band around the "neck" area
No visible "hair"

Does that sound at all familiar? I've never seen anything like them and I'm not sure whether or not they should be destroyed.

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pinksand
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As promised, photos!

Image

Image

Image

They've destroyed about 1/2 the leaves at this point so any help you can provide in identifying them would be great!

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pinksand
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Schizura unicornis... I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Its a moth that appears to be a north american native. Should I attempt to move them off of the poor little serviceberry? Its kind of an ugly moth and a pretty creepy caterpillar. I just don't want it to kill my serviceberry!

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applestar
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Sorry for the late response, I'm usually on top of butterfly and moth thread. :oops:

It sure looks like you ID'd it. It looks like sighting is fairly common in Maryland:
:arrow: https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/spec ... -unicornis


And you have several choices to move the caterpillar to according to bugguide:
https://bugguide.net/node/view/28015#food wrote: adults fly from February to September in the south; May to August in the north larvae May to October in the south; June to September in the north

Food larvae feed on alder, apple, Trembling Aspen (Populus tremuloides), White Birch (Betula papyrifera), elm, hawthorn, hickory, willow
Best way is to clip the leaf/branch the caterpillar is on, put in a container (clear clamshell salad or cookie container with air holes punched in lid and bottom, lined with two layers of paper towel) and transition it to the new food source (a little of both leaves), THEN put it on the new food source. If you put it on the new food source directly, it might not recognize it as food at first and wander off.

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pinksand
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Those guys worked fast! I only have a single branch at the bottom left with any leaves. Any chance my serviceberry will survive this? I'll move them when I get home from work if there's anything left of the serviceberry :(

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applestar
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I believe so. Service Berry is pretty tough. You might clip the ends of the denuded branches to encourage branching, which should kick it into growing new buds/shoots. I might give it a thorough milk spray to keep down fungal issues since it's related to apples and they are all under the gun right now.

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pinksand
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Thanks applestar! I'll try to follow your advice and hope for the best.

Susan W
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Pinksand, you are far more kind and caring than I would have been. By now perhaps many of them dropped in a can and given final farewells....
I did come up on 2 smallish (1 1/2") tomato worms yesterday. As much as I like the adult moth, like my tomato plant more.

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pinksand
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Haha Susan, I don't know if I'm far more kind or just plain stupid! I probably should have removed them as soon as I spotted them chowing down. At first I didn't realize how quickly they were stripping the service berry, and then I just didn't have an opportunity. I guess I felt I couldn't remove them until I knew they weren't some very rare beautiful butterfly that would go into extinction if I took them from their food source... you never know right? ;) I'd never seen a caterpillar that looked like this before but of course they turned out to be such a particularly boring moth. The poor service berry will likely be completely stripped by the time I get home today :(



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