Moths Eat Their Way Through Eastern Forests

As any gardener would know, insects and can either be a plant's best friend or worst nightmare. Insects like bees and ladybugs help to pollenate flowers and keep other pesky bugs away. That's very helpful, but then you have others that see a green area and treat it as a buffet.

Apparently, the Gypsy Moths are having an All-You-Can-Eat affair. According to the Associated Press, the moths' larvae are reeking havoc up and down the East Coast. They are eating the leaves off of various types of trees. The moths are mostly eating the leaves from Oak trees, which are their favorite. However, the larvae will gladly eat the leaves of over 400 other types of trees. University of Maryland entomologist Mike Raupp said that the caterpillars can consume up to one square foot of greenery a day.

Just how bad is it going to be? New Jersey is expecting 200,000 trees to be stripped of their foliage this season. This number is up from 125,000 the previous year. The bugs cleared 700,000 acres in Pennsylvania last year, and it is expected to be worse this year. Raupp said that people in the Washington, DC area are reporting that trees are disappearing in the blink of an eye.

"In all my years as a forest entomologist, I have never witnessed the quick development of larvae as I have in 2007," said Greg Hoover, an entomologist at Penn State University.

Why are they so many bugs to deal with? "As soon as the warm weather hits, they eat like dynamos, juggernauts," Raupp said. The female moths lay eggs on trees in early summer to hatch the following year. If the following spring is wet, fungus and bacteria cause the population of hatchling to be low. It appears that the warm, dry spring that just transpired causes the insect to thrive.

One of the main methods used to curtail the moths' destruction is spraying. 50,000 acres were sprayed in Maryland last month with a bacterial insecticide. The spraying usually takes place in an area where experts believe a large number of moths will lay eggs. They are done in mid to late spring to coincide with the hatching of the eggs from the previous summer.