QUESTION:

Two customers have called me today about hundreds of caterpillars crawling on their patios and driveways, coming into their garages. I asked them to describe them to me, and they told me that they were about an inch long, slim and black, with a white underside. What are these? Ballground and waleska.

ANSWER:

Well, as luck would have it I sent a response to you suggesting perhaps tent caterpillars, but immediately after that I reviewed our Pests In The News offerings for the day and found a article from today that appears to give the exact answer. You can see the entire article online by going into our Pests In The News for May 4 and opening the article from UGA on the "strange moth" outbreak. It turns out this was an unknown caterpillar and a behavior that has not been observed in Georgia before. Some examples were sent to Dr. Dave Wagner at the Univ. of Connecticut who identified them as the Black-dotted Brown Moth - Cissusa spadix, which up till now was not really considered to be a pest.

The caterpillars are as you describe - about an inch long, dark on top and with white lines on either side. They are wandering all over the trunks fo OAK trees and potentially will defoliate the tree. They also wander all over the ground and into homes, and have the wonderful habit of vomiting a dark liquid onto surfaces in the home. Some home remedies are offered in this news article, quoting some folks with the Univ. of Georgia, so I home you will take the time to read it and be aware of this unusual problem. It also brings up the good advice that ANY time you find some pests in your area you are not familiar with, or some behaving very much out of character, please bring it to the attention of your local Dept. of Agriculture or University Extension Service. We can be the thousands of extra eyes in the field to help recognize new invasive pests early, and perhaps eradicate them before they are out of control.

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