You might recall that we had a late burst of Indian Summer in November and early December last year here in Eastern Massachusetts, and it helped cause a massive population explosion of winter moths. For a couple of weeks, the back porch light here at the Fortress of Solitude was like a homing beacon for hundreds of little brown moths, and we were informed that the number of moths in Massachusetts probably measured into the trillions.
Fast forward to our early spring and the warm weather we’ve been having since the monsoons ended. Guess what…all those moths used that little warm spell then to get their freak on, and we are about to be inundated with their progeny: inchworms. Yes, those little teeny green caterpillars are the larval stage of the geometridae species of moth. They’re also sometimes called “green loopers” because of the way their midsections loop up when they walk. There’s only one cycle of larvae each year, so all the inchworms will appear within the next few weeks, eat everything in sight, and then go off to pupate sometime in mid-summer, emerging as moths in the fall.
I was reminded of all this the other day when I came across a video of an inchworm someone found on their backpack while riding a bus; after filming it crawling on his bag, the fellow takes the bag to a park and sets the inchworm free on a leaf. The whole video is set to the song “Inchworm” as sung by Danny Kaye in the musical film “Hans Christian Anderson”, which has always been a favorite tune of mine. Here’s Danny Kaye and the Muppets singing “Inchworm” on “The Muppet Show”:
As much as I love that song, I didn’t realize how much of a pest inchworms were, so I may have to reconsider just how beautiful they are.
We’ve been double hit by winter moth and the evil wooly adelgid. The whole house is surrounded by hemlocks – the wooly adelgids choice of crack, and our cherry trees and apple trees attract the winter moth so we now have to get everything sprayed seasonally. It’s a horticultural oil that isn’t toxic, but it costs us a pretty penny every year just to save our trees so we don’t end up living in a naked lot.