Ringed silkworm

Ringed silkworm is everywhere. You will find it in the forest, in the park, and in the garden. It lives in the Caucasus and the Urals. The foresters complain that it damages the oaks, gardeners protect the apple trees from it. The caterpillar of the ringed silkworm feeds on the leaves of many trees: oak, elm, birch, willow, alder, cherry, rowan, apple, pear, cherry. She will not give up hawthorn, raspberries, blackberries, but escapes limes and ash.

The caterpillar of the ringed silkworm feeds on the leaves of many trees: oak, elm, birch, willow, alder, cherry, rowan, apple, pear, cherry

At butterflies winter eggs, caterpillars, pupae, sometimes butterflies. The ringed silkworm hibernate eggs. Many of them know, even more people have seen, but did not know what it is. The butterfly of the ringed silkworm lays eggs on thin branches, along the edges of the crown. They lay flat and arranged around the branch. It turns out a ringlet, in which there are several hundred eggs.

All through the winter there are rings of ringed silkworm eggs on the branches. In the spring, as soon as the fruit buds begin to blossom at the apple-tree, caterpillars leave the eggs. They developed in the fall, but they stayed wintering in the egg.

Caterpillars of a ringed silkworm do not creep: they and keep all brood. In the fork of thin branches, they arrange a spider's nest: they weave a silk canopy. In the afternoon they gather on top of it and like warming themselves in the sun. In bad weather, they crawl inside. And closer to the evening they will crawl to the neighboring twigs to feed. They gnaw unwrapped buds, buds, later - flowers, young leaves.

Overlapping, the caterpillars of the ringed silkworm make a new nest now in the forks of thicker branches. Black they only in early youth. Then their color changes. The caterpillar of the ringed silkworm becomes bluish-gray or even bluish, bright longitudinal strips appear: a white strip with black edges stretches along the back: along the sides of this strip and on the sides - red-orange stripes. Blackish hairs form two buns on each ring of the body. Beautiful caterpillar!

The caterpillars of the ringed silkworm are fed with the whole brood. Crawling caterpillar leaves on its entire path a lasting trace: a spiderweb thread. The track of one caterpillar is not so great, it is hardly noticeable "path". But not one caterpillar crawls along the branch. Each pulls a silk thread, there is no longer a path, but a whole arachnid "road". On it the caterpillars return to the nest.

The silk thread of the ringed silkworm is distinguished by special glands, their opening on the tubercle-papilla of the lower lip. This lip covers his mouth from below. The cobweb of the ringed silkworm is very important: it points the way home. There is no path - there is no way to the nest. Caterpillars of the ringed silkworm are very short-sighted, and one can say about them that they see "no farther than their nose".

The larger the caterpillar of the ringed silkworm becomes, the more it eats. She so nibbles leaves, that from them there are only stalks and thick veins. It takes about a month and a half. Caterpillars of the ringed silkworm molt in the last, fifth, time. Pulling silkworms the edges of a large leaf or several small leaves, the caterpillar of a ringed silkworm spins a double cocoon between them. Its outer layer is loose and translucent, the inner layer is dense. In the cocoon, the caterpillar of the ringed silkworm transforms into a pupa.

After a couple of weeks or two butterflies appear ringed silkworm. It happens in July: when in the beginning, when in the middle, looking at the spring and the summer.

Butterfly ringed silkworm can not be called a beauty. It is not large, only 3-4 centimeters in the wingspan. Brownish-yellow, with two transverse dark strips on the front wings. The male is noticeably smaller than the female, not as thick, its antennae are crimson. Males of ringed silkworms leave the pupa for a day or two earlier than females.

Organs of smell are usually found in insects on the antennae. Especially strongly developed is the sense of smell in the males of some nocturnal butterflies: they smell, from hundreds of steps, the smell of a female. In these males, the antennae are pinnate or cristae: their surface is much larger than that of the usual antennae. Such are the mustaches of a ringed silkworm.

Do you want to save apple-trees from caterpillars of the ringed silkworm? Take up fighting with it. What you need to do for this is easy to understand. Rings of eggs, nests of caterpillars - these are the weak spots of the ringed silkworm. Cut the twigs with rings and burn them. Remove the caterpillars of the ringed silkworm from the nests and destroy them. In a small garden it's only a few hours of work. A small warning: the caterpillars of the ringed silkworm do not take their bare hands - their hairs can cause skin irritation.

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