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What type of cocoon is this?
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Posted by nuckphoto (My Page) on Tue, Aug 3, 10 at 15:48
| I found two of these on our young Red Sunset Maple that we planted in the Spring. They are about 2.5 inches long and looks like the critters used parts of leaves to camouflage themselves.
Thanks for your help. |
Image link: What type of cocoon is this? (50 k)
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: What type of cocoon is this?
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| That is the home of the bagworm. Most people think of them strictly as conifer pests, but they can be found on any kind of plant. Yes, they use the leaves and petioles to make their cocoon. This isn't a 'cocoon', by the way. You need to remove and destroy any that you find. Inspect your other plants, too. Sometimes, early in the season, you will still find the female bagworm inside this portable home. Later in the season, it will be filled with eggs. Those eggs will over winter in that cozy nest, and in the spring....voila! A big batch of brand new baby bagworms. |
RE: What type of cocoon is this?
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| Thanks, rhizo, but doesn't the worm turn into a moth inside the bag making it a cocoon, more or less? Or maybe it's more of a changing room. ;-) I take it they are bad? I was just going to let them do their thing. Thanks again. |
RE: What type of cocoon is this?
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| That's not how a bagworm works. Other species, yes....not the bagworm. This bag is not a cocoon, in the real sense of the word. There can be many hundreds of tiny eggs (close to 1000) that over winter in the bag. When they hatch in the spring, they begin their lives as tee-tiny babies that float away on a little thread of silk. They begin making a bag right away. They also begin feeding. The bag becomes larger and larger as they mature. It's actually mobile for quite some time, before the caterpillars attach it to their host plant. The male bagworm, when it grows to the point of pupation, will wriggle out of the bag before it does so, completing the life cycle outside. He then goes in search of females, who remain inside their own bags for the duration of their lives. They are are maggot-like creatures....wingless, eyeless, legless....just an vehicle for laying eggs. They never leave the bag; their bodies often simply drop to the ground. So! Either the bag is empty at this time of year, because its male inhabitant has vacated OR it will soon become filled with the hundred of eggs of next year's bagworms. Still want them to do their thing? |
RE: What type of cocoon is this?
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| Hmmmmmmmmmmm, interesting. Well, I guess I'll kill the little buggers. Thanks. |
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