Fall cankerworm
The fall cankerworm is a moth, but its mums cannot fly. Females are grey and have no wings at all, while the males have glossy brown wings with white bands. Its caterpillars are inchworms that loop along like a measuring tape.
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Fun facts
It is called fall cankerworm because the females come out of the ground in November, in the fall.
The caterpillars grow to about 25 millimetres long and can be light green or dark brownish green.
Its eggs are smaller than 1 millimetre and laid in groups on trees.
Many birds eat the caterpillars, and so do some ground beetles.
The caterpillar turns into a moth inside a silk cocoon just under the ground.
Most asked questions about Fall cankerworm
?Why can't female fall cankerworms fly?
Female fall cankerworm moths have no wings at all. Only the males fly.
?What is an inchworm?
An inchworm is a caterpillar that moves by looping its body. Fall cankerworm caterpillars are inchworms.
?Are fall cankerworms harmful?
They are harmless to people, but many caterpillars can eat all the new leaves off a tree.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Alsophila pometaria
- Named by
- Harris, 1841
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Geometridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Geometridae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Alsophila pometaria (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by USDA Forest Service - Region 8 Archive, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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