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scythemantis — Bagworm
Published: 2010-08-10 01:59:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 2187; Favourites: 17; Downloads: 47
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Description
This is just a common pest to most people, but it's always been one of my favorite insects! Bagworms are the larvae of moths, and begin building their cocoon as soon as they're born, which they carry with them their entire larval period and add to as they grow.I currently live in Florida, where the largest bagworms I've seen are no bigger than my pinky fingernail. Visiting my home state of Maryland, I found one of these big guys like I always remembered as a kid.
If it's a female, it actually won't transform into a winged moth, but into a limbless, faceless, sausage-shaped creature, remaining in her bag and releasing pheromones to attract the males. Her eggs will hatch inside her body shortly after she dies, forcing the tiny caterpillars to struggle free from her corpse.
The Pokemon Pineco, Burmy and their evolutions are all based on these insects!
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Comments: 10
Yep, parts of the U.S. have an invasive "snailcase bagworm," it has a tiny spiraled bag, and our populations lack males, so they're like, eternal caterpillars! They don't harm plant life enough to be a bother apparently, but what the snailcases cause is damage to house and car paint! They fuse to surfaces so strongly they have to be powerwashed off.
I'd love to see/own some of them someday
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caterpillars using a snail niche for the win
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We had a lot of these on the pine trees around my neighborhood for awhile and my dad did everything to keep them from living on the trees in our own backyard.
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When I was little people would pluck them in vast numbers and burn them, they could defoliate entire trees. Now, I can't find them! Only the one
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Nice picture. Is that some kind of long-needle pine it's hanging from?
I saw one of these guys hanging by a thread from a lamppost in front of a Catholic church about 6 weeks ago. It was undulating, and I think it was sealing up the top of its bag. The dormant ones are all over the coniferous bushes in town right now, but the lamppost hanger had a bag made out of deciduous leaves. I wish I'd had my camera with me.
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