Subfamily Epipaschiinae 
The pine webworm, Tetralopha robustella Zeller, occurs in southern Canada and 
throughout most of the eastern half of the United States. Its food plants include 
several species of pines: jack, red, eastern white, Scotch, pitch, Virginia, shortleaf, 
longleaf, loblolly, and slash. Jack pine is preferred in the Lake States and adjacent 
parts of Canada. In the Northeast, pitch pine is preferred. The adult has a wing- 
spread of about 25 mm. The basal part of the forewing is purple-black, the central 
part grayish, and the outer part blackish. Full-grown larvae are yellowish brown, 
with two dark-brown longitudinal stripes on each side, and are about 18 mm long. 
Adults are present from June to August and deposit their eggs on pine needles. 
Young larvae mine the needles; older ones live in silken tubes that extend through 
globular masses of brown, coarse frass webbed together by strands of silk (fig. 68). 
These masses, which are found on the twigs, enclose the needles upon which the 
larvae feed, and range in length from about 8 to 13 cm. Pupation occurs in a cell in 
the soil. In the northern part of its range, there is usually one generation per year; in 
the South there may be two (/240). 
The pine webworm is often troublesome in pine plantations. Young seedlings up 
to 0.6 m tall are sometimes completely defoliated and killed by the larvae in a 
NN 
F-519529 F-532810 
Figure 67.—Apical portion of leaf rolled Figure 68.—Web nest of the pine 
into a tube by a larva of the webworm, Jetralopha robustella, 
basswood leafroller, Pantographa on slash pine. 
limata. 
179 
