It’s webworm season. The squirmy bugs are actually caterpillars and they can create some sticky situations in area trees.
“They develop this web around them to protect them from the birds,” Lou Meyer, a certified arborist for the The Davey Tree Expert Company, said.
He said while webworms are caterpillars and not worms, the “web” part of their name definitely describes them.
“Looks like giant spider webs, and you’ll notice that some of the leaves are gone, and that’s where the web worms are feeding on those leaves,” he said. “The webs themselves are this really high tensile strength web. It’s kind of hard to break them.”
And those webs can get rather large.
“I’ve seen them as big as, you know, 2 feet long by 2 feet wide. So they’re pretty darn big,” he said.
They are native to the mid-Atlantic region and show up in late August or September.
“They feed on over 100 species of trees, so they’re prolific throughout the area,” he said.
While they can be an eyesore to some, he said they are harmless.
“They are not damaging the tree to any degree that we would be concerned,” he said.
So how do you clear them up if you want them gone?
“If you really want to manage them, you can prune out those webs when you see them,” he said. “If they’re really high up, if you can reach them with a pole, pruner, that’s fine, clip them right out and then dispose of that.”
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