BadCritters: Tiger Moth Caterpillar

The caterpillar of this BadCritter will munch your salad greens just as happily as your non-edibles. Their hairy bodies have given them the nickname ‘woolly bears’.

I picked the caterpillar below of my snow pea plants and after its photo shoot it got dispatched 🙂 .

Bit of a shame as they are amazing to watch and the moth is attractive too.

Species: Ardices glatignyi

Identification:

Ardices_glatignyi_13
Eggs are laid on the underside of leaves Source: Toby Hudson (Wikimedia Commons)

img_20170805_185440

img_20170805_185502

Ardices_glatignyi_04
Source: Toby Hudson (Wikimedia Commons)

Damage:

The caterpillars are voracious munchers of many trees, shrubs and vegetables found in the home garden.

Control:

Visual inspection of the top and bottom of leaves and removing any caterpillars is generally sufficient. You can buy traps and insecticides but I have never needed to use them.

More Resources:

Youtube:

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.