Monday, July 30, 2012

Fuzzy....Wuzzy...What?!

On our recent visit to Kings Canyon National Park, we saw lots of these...


Fuzzy, wuzzy, little caterpillars.  Wow!...They sure have long hair!
There were so many on some of the trails that we had to be careful not to step on them.


How about a mustache?  Hee hee


We also saw a lot of these webby things.  The first few days that we were there, they all seemed to be thick spider webs with dead bugs trapped in them.  But, as the week progressed, we started seeing more and more caterpillars on them.  Hmmmm?  What could they be?  Who made them?  We've never seen anything like it.  We assumed they were spider webs but, with so many caterpillars on them, it makes more sense that they were created by the caterpillars.  We kept meaning to ask a ranger.  But, they seem to be quite scarce in this park.  And, whenever we went to a visitor center, we forgot to ask.  Has anyone seen these before?  Do you know anything about them?  I'd love to get the scoop, if you wouldn't mind sharing.  Thanks! 

5 comments:

roxie said...

Those webs are the homes of tent caterpillars. They cause havoc in the orchards around here and The usual solution is to cut the branch with the web out of the tree and burn it. Please feel free to tread on the little buggers all you want.

Your photos are wonderful!

judith said...

They will totally destroy a tree if left alone. My dad used to go around the neighborhood burning the webs in trees with a long pole with a burning torch on the end. Now days, w cut them out of the trees and place them in a large yard bag to get rid of them. They are very invasive.

Anonymous said...

yep! burned them regularly in the ranch

Acorn to Oak said...

Yikes! I had no idea they were such evil little critters. :-/

life in red shoes said...

Evil little critters is right! I have a think about caterpillars....worse than spiders!