Caterpillar Tents on Trees

Eggs

• The eastern tent caterpillar's adult stage, a moth, lays its eggs on the twig of a wild cherry tree, typically. The egg mass is like a dense, solid foam in consistency. It appears dark brown or black and is somewhat shiny. The eggs are the overwintering stage for the tent caterpillars.

Caterpillars

• More or less at the same time that the tree's leaves are starting to come out in the spring, the tent caterpillar eggs begin hatching. Once the small caterpillars emerge they have a ready food supply, since their hatching coincides with leaf emergence and growth. The caterpillars are fairly colorful with black, white, yellow and rows of blue spots.

Tent

• The caterpillars produce silken threads, and soon after emergence they begin constructing a tent-like web. The caterpillars usually make the tent structure in the crotch of two or more branches. The tent is a multilayered structure and, when finished, provides a resting place for the caterpillars when they are not feeding.

Cocoons

• Once the tent caterpillars are mature, at perhaps more than 2 inches in length, they begin to disperse from the tent and tree. At this stage they are seeking out places to pupate or to form cocoons for the next stage in their life cycle. The actively feeding stage of the caterpillar is very social and the individual caterpillars stay closely associated with the tent, where they form a cohesive social group. But when they are dispersing to form the cocoon stage their tight social unit breaks up.

Moths

• After an approximately three-week-long cocoon stage, the adult moths begin to emerge from the cocoon. The adults soon mate and shortly afterwards the females seek out suitable tree twigs upon which to lay their eggs. After egg laying the adult moths die and a new generation of eggs is prepared to overwinter and continue the life cycle the following spring.