Just as I take my dog outside for a walk, I noticed that my house is covered with creepy-looking caterpillars! They are crawling on our house's slab. I noticed that houses around me are dealing with the same thing. I've attached the photo here - what kind of caterpillar is it? Is this the one that turns into a beautiful butterfly? How can we get rid of them? If they're the one that turns into a butterfly, I don't want to kill them, but 'tell' them to stay away. LOL
Those are Tent Caterpillars and are a very nasty pest. http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2022.html
Those buggers'll do a number on your trees.... they're horrible up north in years past... we used to actually wrap tinfoil around the base of the tree because they couldn't climb up the foil. The only way to really kill a nest of them in a tree that I know of, it to cut out the affected branches and burn them. We used to call them Gypsy Moths... I guess that what they turn into after morphing???
I don't seem those nests hardly any more. I remember being little and standing there while my grandfather would burn those things right in the tree! From what I hear, Clayton has a bad caterpillar problem on the east side of town. Yuck. Yuck Yuck. <-pitiful attempt at humor
They are also commonly called bag worms. And as stated earlier in the post are sure to kill a tree if they get a good nest established in it. Craig
You can also go to Lowes and buy a product called Spectra side wasp killer. It works great also it says on the bottle that it works on tent caterpillars.
Granted they are two totally different creatures, but growing up around here all my life and having to deal with them I have always heard them called bag worms by everyone that has had to deal with trying to get rid of them in the past. Craig
