Catterpiller webs

[Gob]

It looks like a spooky special effect from a scene in a low-budget horror film.

But this sticky, silky mass is actually the work of thousands of tiny caterpillars.

Coating bushes, street signs and even garden hedges this is the sign that the ermine moths are preparing to pupate.

Caterpillars, which feed on cherry trees, hawthorn and blackthorn, build webs around their favourite feeding plants as a way to protect themselves from predators.

In their caterpillar stage, the bugs, known as web worms, weave leaves of trees together and eat them from their nests.

They feed on bird cherry trees which are found across Europe and when they emerge fully grown, they become distinctive white moths with five rows of black dots.

Within weeks, a tree can be completely stripped of its leaves by the thousands of writhing caterpillars - in webs which can quickly grow to 30 square feet.

Safe from predatory birds and wasps, they also pupate in the web, spinning themselves a hard cocoon where they stay until emerging as moths.

Insect expert Stuart Hine of the Natural History Museum said these kinds of webs was created by ermine yponomeuta moths, which are common in Britain.

He said: 'The ermine caterpillar spins webs around a plant that it feeds on so it can gorge itself, without worrying about predators, mainly birds and wasps.

'We call them "tents" and in undisturbed locations, like the side of a road the webs can grow unusually large.

'This is the time of year it often happens. These caterpillars pupate just once a year so they will be emerging in July or August.'

Julie Pullen and her 4-year-old daughter Lucy stopped to look at the phenomenon with a mixture of awe and horror.

Mrs Pullen said: 'I first noticed the web on the bushes about two weeks ago. I've never seen anything like it before.'

'It's a good job it's not spiders that have made the web because I'm absolutely terrified of them.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z0qCpdi1Sl

[loCAtek]

Bleh! Is that why you left the UK?

[Crackpot]

they have those round here. Never seen quite that big of a web tho.

[Grim Reaper]

That's nothing, check out the giant spider web found in Texas:

[The Hen]

That is both beautiful, and irritating.

Just looking at it makes my skin crawl.

I am having to scratch my back now the crawling is that bad!