Gypsy Moth

• GeneralA defoliating pest that can strip whole forests bare; the European females can barely fly.
• It reached North America by accident: in 1869 Étienne Léopold Trouvelot imported eggs to Medford, Massachusetts, to try crossing it with the silkworm and obtain a disease-resistant caterpillar. They escaped from his garden.
• He warned the local entomologists and nothing was done; twelve years later the population exploded and the first government insect eradication campaign in history was launched, and failed.
• Since 1980 it has defoliated more than 4,000 km² of US forest a year; in 1981 the figure was 52,200 km².
• Newly hatched caterpillars disperse through the air hanging from a silk thread, a process known as ballooning.
• The females cannot fly: they lay their eggs on the same trunk where they emerge, and dispersal depends on the caterpillars and on human transport.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat & environment

Deciduous woodland of oak, holm oak and chestnut

Litter / clutch size

Clutches of 300 to 500 eggs

Sources consulted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymantria_dispar