Red-striped Juniper Looper (Thera juniperata)

Taxonomy

Domain	Eukarya
Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Arthropoda
Subphylum	Hexapoda
Class	Insecta
Subclass	Pterygota
Infraclass	Neoptera
Superorder	Holometabola
Order	Lepidoptera
Superfamily	Geometroidea
Family	Geometridae
Subfamily	Larentiinae
Tribe	Stamnodini
Genus	Thera

Scientific Name

Thera juniperata

Common Name

juniper carpet

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

Mostly green body with pale and reddish stripes. Yellowish green head with purplish red line down lobes to stemmata and with two small white dots on frons; broad, yellowish band on anterior margin of T1; purplish red thoracic legs. Light blue dorsum, particularly on abdomen; light yellow subdorsal stripe; purplish red spiracular stripe adjoined to white and yellow subspiracular stripe. Narrow yellowish band at hind margin of segments; yellow stripe down center of venter. Up to 17 mm.

Food

Common and creeping junipers.

Life Cycle

One generation. Egg overwinters on foliage. Mature caterpillar present in August and September.

Comments

This caterpillar, which was accidentally introduced from Europe, is cryptic on the foliage of common juniper. It eats not only native junipers, but also introduced ones used in landscape plantings. The red-striped juniper looper apparently is not found very far south of New England. Prentice (1963) has recorded eastern red-cedar as a food plant in southern Canada, but we have never found it on this conifer in New England. Although the native species, Thera contractata, also occurs in the Northeast, we did not encounter it during our sampling.