250 OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION: BULLETIN 332 



The moth is a bright tan insect with its wings irregularly 

 marked with fine dark spots. Near the middle of the front wing is 

 a white spot a little larger than a common pin head. The male 

 is much darker and smaller than the female, measuring only II/2 

 inches across his expanded wings while the female measures 214 

 inches. The eggs measure about four-one hundredths of an inch 

 across and are about half as high as wide. They are round in out- 

 line and the shell is very thin. They are laid in masses of from 200 

 to 500 on the foliage. 



Life history and habits. — The moths begin to appear by mid- 

 June and this, together with oviposition, extends over a period of 

 almost a month. Thus, caterpillars of all sizes are found during 

 the summer, but by early fall most of them are mature and pass 

 to the soil. They burrow down 3 or 4 inches where they transform 

 to the pupal stage and in this condition pass the winter. 



The caterpillars are somewhat gregarious in their feeding 

 habits, usually defoliating a branch or tree before moving to the 

 next, and occasionally when their food becomes scarce in any given 

 situation may migrate to new plants. Instances are on record 

 where the migrating caterpillars have stopped railway trains. 

 However, if food is plentiful the insect does not spread rapidly and 

 may be found fairlj^ plentiful in a given locality for successive years 

 while in comparatively nearby localities the insect may be unknown. 



Nature of work. — The only injury caused by the yellow-striped 

 oak worm is the destruction of foliage by the larvae. Sometimes 

 this is very severe, amounting to total defoliation of large areas of 

 oak woods. To the writer's knowledge such widespread injury has 

 never occurred in Ohio, but during the last 2 years many individual 

 trees in the southern part of the State have been stripped. 



Food plants. — In Ohio the writer has observed this insect feed- 

 ing upon the following hosts: shingle oak,Quercus imhricoria; white 

 oak, Q. alba; chestnut oak, Q. prinus; black oak, Q. velutina; scarlet 

 oak, Q. coccinea; hickory, maple and hazelnut. In addition to this 

 list, it has been reported on raspberry, white birch, the bear or 

 scrub oak, Q. ilicifolia, and the dwarf chinquapin oak, Q. prinoides. 



Distribution. — This insect is less abundant, according to Felt, 

 in the southern than in the northern section of the United States. 

 In the East the insect extends from Canada to Georgia and has been 

 reported from Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas and Califoraia. It 

 therefore may be said to be generally distributed. Destructive out- 

 breaks have been reported previously from New York, Michigan, 



