White Pine Angle (Macaria pinistrobata)

Taxonomy

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

Scientific Name

Macaria pinistrobata

Common Name

white pine angle

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

Green body with frosted dorsum and with conspicuous, pale subdorsal and spiracular stripes. Yellowish green head with very small brown spots on outer side of lobes and with yellow streak from stemmata to T1 (extension of spiracular stripe); green thoracic legs, increasingly yellowish brown toward tip. Green middorsal stripe trimmed with mostly white; dorsum partly frosted with bluish white; white subdorsal stripe with two wavy, dark green longitudinal lines immediately below. Mainly white spiracular stripe with yellow near spiracles; yellow band on hind margin of segments. Up to 24 mm.

Food

Eastern white pine.

Life Cycle

One to two generations. Pupa overwinters in soil or debris. Mature caterpillar present from July to October.

Comments

Unlike the other species of Macaria on pines, the white pine angle has very little brown color on the head. Wagner et al. (2001) have pictured a purplish form (possibly a product of rearing in the laboratory) that we have never encountered in nature. The white pine angle formerly was known as Semiothisa pinistrobata.