Pine Webworm (Pococera robustella)

Taxonomy

Domain	Eukarya
Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Arthropoda
Subphylum	Hexapoda
Class	Insecta
Subclass	Pterygota
Infraclass	Neoptera
Superorder	Holometabola
Order	Lepidoptera
Superfamily	Pyraloidea
Family	Pyralidae
Subfamily	Epipaschiinae
Genus	Pococera

Scientific Name

Pococera robustella

Common Name

pine webworm

Maier, C.T.; Lemmon, C.R.; Fengler, J.M.; Schweitzer, D.F.; Reardon, R.C.; Caterpillars on the Foliage of Conifers in the Northeastern United States. Morgantown, WV. USDA Forest Service. Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. FHTET-2004-01. March 2004. 151 p.

Description

Yellowish brown body with dark brown stripes; sometimes upper body overwhelmingly dark brown or with exceptionally broad stripes. Yellowish brown head marked with dark brown on lobes; yellowish brown prothoracic shield with several narrow, short, transverse dark lines. Broad middorsal stripe; broad subdorsal and thin supraspiracular stripes with narrow, fragmented stripe between them; thin, broken subspiracular stripe. Yellowish brown below spiracles and on venter. Up to 20 mm.

Food

Jack, pitch, red, and other hard pines.

Life Cycle

One generation. Pupa overwinters in silken cocoon in soil. Mature caterpillar present from August to October.

Comments

The young caterpillar mines needles. After it stops its mining, the pine webworm eats needles while it dwells in a silken tube in a webbed nest of needles and frass (see below). Several caterpillars may occupy the same nest. In southern New England, we have found most of the nests near ground level on pitch pine. The pine webworm previously was known as Tetralopha robustella.