Large black-orange caterpillar. Woodworm odorous and methods of pest control
The odorous wood borer (lat. Cossus cossus) belongs to the order of butterflies of the wood borer family. It is a serious pest of fruit and ornamental trees.
It is easily identified by its large caterpillars of bright color (from pink to brown-red) and the characteristic smell of wood alcohol or vinegar, felt at a distance of several meters. This smell is secreted by the jaw glands of the insect, which is how it got its name. The second name of the insect is willow woodworm, it is willows that are their preference.
The range of the odoriferous woodworm
It occurs almost everywhere in the forest and forest-steppe zones on the territory of Russia, from Western Europe to China, in North Africa, Asia Minor. In Russia, there are many insect pests that cause trouble to both plants and people. So, among the most stand out such as wasps, hornets, gadflies, some types of ants and others.
Life cycle and morphology
The full cycle of transformation of the odoriferous woodworm lasts 2 years. During this period it passes 4 stages of development:
- eggs,
- larvae,
- pupae,
- imago.
The eggs are elongated, about 1.5 mm in size. They are light brown in color with dark stripes. The duration of the stage is 10-15 days.
Larvae (caterpillars) are large (up to 10 cm long), brightly colored. Immediately after hatching, they are pink-red, as they mature, their color becomes reddish-brown with a brown-red back. The head and scutes on the back are shiny, black. Adult caterpillars grow strong black jaws, the glands of which begin to secrete an unpleasant-smelling liquid. The caterpillars emerging from the eggs immediately bite under the bark, where they overwinter in groups of 20-30 individuals. After wintering, the caterpillars live alone. They make large passages in the wood (up to 15 mm in diameter) from the bottom up with transverse galleries. It is in the larval stage, which lasts 2 years, that woodworms cause the greatest harm to trees.
The pupae are about 3 cm long, brown-brown, and are in a silky cocoon of small wood particles. Pupation can occur in gnawed passages, in old rotten stumps, in the soil at the foot of a tree. This stage lasts from 12 to 45 days. At its very end, the pupa extends half its length out of the cocoon.
Adult butterflies (imago) are medium-sized, inconspicuous in color. Females are larger than males, with a wingspan of 75–95 mm (males 65–75 mm). The color of the front wings is brownish-gray or dark gray, and numerous gray-white spots, black dots and strokes form a marble pattern on them. The hindwings are brownish-brown, with a transverse pattern of darker wavy lines. The body is densely covered with gray hairs. The chest is brown-gray, divided by a black stripe. The abdomen is dark gray, thick, in females with a clearly visible retractable ovipositor.
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Biological
This includes attracting insect-eating birds (tits, woodpeckers, rooks, magpies, pikas, and others) to gardens, which significantly, but not completely, helps to destroy woodworms. To do this, hang feeders, bird houses, artificial nests.
Prevention measures
To prevent the appearance of woodworm, it is necessary to regularly clean the trees of old cracked bark, moss, and then coat the trunks with one of the following mixtures:
- from clay with lime (proportion 2: 1);
- clay, glue and insecticide. Dilute the clay in water until the density of sour cream, add 250 g of casein or wood glue and 90 g of 10% karbofos to a bucket. For young trees with uncorked bark, it is better not to add glue.
Thank you, the information is exhaustive, very useful
The odoriferous borer lives everywhere and harms not only field-protective plantings, but also various fruit crops, damaging alder, oak, birch and numerous fruit trees. Slightly less likely to suffer from his attacks are walnut and maple. Most often, the odorous woodworm inhabits weakened trees growing under adverse conditions. Damaged trees get sick, noticeably lag behind in growth, and are also characterized by a sharp decrease in the yield of fruits with seeds and often dry out.
Getting to know the pest
The fragrant wood borer is a rather large butterfly: males reach a length of 70 to 75 mm, and females are even larger - from 85 to 95 mm. The dark gray front wings of the pests are decorated with a large number of black strokes and grayish-white fuzzy patterns. And the color of their hind wings is usually light brown. The funny antennae of the odoriferous woodworms are comb-shaped, and their entire body is covered with short hairs.Caterpillars are characterized by a double wintering: individuals of the first year of life overwinter in winding family passages clogged with dust and numerous stubs under tree bark, and individuals of the second year in their own passages chiseled in wood. Moreover, the machined moves are mainly longitudinal. At the end of the second wintering, approximately at the end of May or at the beginning of June, harmful caterpillars pupate in silky and very dense cocoons located in rotten stumps and tunnels, as well as near the bases of tree trunks in the surface soil layer. Pupae develop from twenty to forty days. Butterflies flying out in June and July are especially active in the evenings.
Malicious butterflies do not need additional nutrition at all. Fertilized females lay from two to seven dozen eggs. They place them mainly on the lower parts of the trunks in the crevices of the bark, covering the ovipositions with sticky secretions that quickly harden in the air. On average, the total fecundity of each female reaches a thousand eggs. After ten or twelve days, voracious caterpillars are reborn, which immediately bite under the bark and jointly gnaw through irregularly shaped joint surface passages.
For the entire period of development of the caterpillar, a total of eight centuries pass: from four to five centuries - in the first year of development and from three to four - in the second. Thus, a two-year generation is typical for odoriferous woodworms.
Severely affected woodworm odorous trees are removed and burned. If the trees are not particularly affected, then insecticides are injected into the caterpillar tracks with the help of thin tips.
Description
Habitat
It occurs throughout the zone of mixed and broad-leaved forests, in floodplain forests, forest belts, gardens and parks. In the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, they are found up to the upper border of the forest, in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan in oases and tugai along the banks of rivers, less often in mountain forests. The species is sedentary, nocturnal.
Summer time
The flight of butterflies in the middle zone of the European part is from the end of May to the beginning of August. In Crimea and on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, during early and warm spring - from mid-April (lasts until early August), in Transcaucasia - from early May to late July, in Buryatia and Tuva - from late June to late August, in Turkmenistan - from April to the end of June, in Tajikistan (Hissar Valley) - from mid-May to early August. Butterflies fly low to the ground, mostly at night. The flight lasts about 2 weeks.
reproduction
Egg
Females lay 700 to 1000 eggs, mostly in crevices in the bark. Eggs are laid in groups of 15-50, sometimes up to 230 pieces. Eggs are covered with sticky secretions that quickly harden in the air. The eggs are light brown in color, oblong, 1.2-1.7 mm long. Egg stage 12-16 days.
Caterpillar
Security
The odorous woodworm is listed in the Red Books of the Republic of Tatarstan, and the Red Book of the Smolensk Region.
A photo
Notes
Literature
- // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
- Zagulyaev A.K. Sem. Cossidae - Woodworms or cossiids. / Insects and mites - pests of agricultural crops. T. 3, part 1. Lepidoptera. - St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1994. S. 47-51.
- Rudnev D.F. Carpenter family - Cossidae. / Pests of agricultural crops and forest plantations arthropods (ed. Vasiliev V.P.). T. 2. - Kyiv: Harvest, 1974. S. 226-228.
- Savkovsky P.P. Atlas of pests of fruit and berry crops. - Kyiv: Harvest, 1976. 207 p.
- Chistyakov Yu.A. Carpenter family - Cossidae. / Butterflies - pests of agriculture in the Far East. Determinant (ed. Kirpichnikova V. A., Ler P. A.). - Vladivostok: FEB AN USSR, 1988. S. 55-60.
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See what "odorous woodworm" is in other dictionaries:
- (Cossus cossus), butterfly family. woodworms. Wingspan 75 104 mm. Widely distributed in the USSR in the forest zone. Flight in May-August, eggs are laid in groups (20-70 each) in cracks in the bark, more often willows, poplars and fruit trees. Young caterpillars ... ... Biological encyclopedic dictionary
- (Cossus ligniperda Fr.). Butterfly from the Xylotropha family of carpenters, up to an inch in length and a little finger thick. Brownish grey, with many dark wavy transverse lines and light indefinite spots on the wings. On the back behind the head... encyclopedic Dictionary F. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron
Butterfly with brown-gray wings. Flies in summer and lays eggs in cracks in tree bark. Caterpillars first live under the bark in old passages, then make new passages from the bottom up. odorous wood borer (x 13/4): 1 caterpillar inlet; 2 and 3… … Agricultural Dictionary-Reference - (Cossidae) a family of night butterflies of the heteroptera suborder. Wing venation is primitive. Mostly large forms: in the fauna of the USSR up to 85 mm in wingspan, in Australia up to 220 mm. The coloration is varied; northern hemisphere species often... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
The style of this article is not encyclopedic or violates the norms of the Russian language. The article should be corrected according to the stylistic rules of Wikipedia ... Wikipedia
WOODWORKERS- (Cossidae) the family belonging to the Lepidoptera order has about 800 species. These butterflies are distributed throughout the world. Most often they are of medium size. The largest of them have wingspan up to 10 See The exception is those ... ... Insect life
(Cossus Cossus L.) is widespread in the European part, in the Caucasus.
Damages apple, pear, plum, oak, alder, birch and others. in wingspan. Forewings gray-brown, with dark dots and spots. The hindwings are gray-brown, with dull, dark wavy lines. The abdomen is dark, with whitish-gray rings. The whole body is densely covered with hairs. The eggs are light brown, with dark stripes.
Young caterpillars of the woodworm are fragrant pinkish in color. Adults with brown-red back. The head and thoracic shield are shiny black. Adult caterpillars reach a length of 80-100 mm. Woodworm caterpillars have an unpleasant odor. The pupa is brown, in an oblong cocoon made of sawdust, fastened with cobwebs. Caterpillars of the first and second years of development hibernate in wood, in passages clogged with a wormhole. In the spring, burrowing into the wood of branches and trunks, they make new moves, mainly longitudinal, from bottom to top, with transverse and oblique side galleries. Overwinter twice. Caterpillars of the odoriferous woodworm pupate in spring or early summer of the third year in wood, near the inlet. The pupal phase lasts from two weeks to one and a half months. Butterflies of the fragrant woodworm fly in June-July, in the evenings and at night. Eggs are laid in groups in cracks in the bark, covering them with a brown, sticky liquid that hardens in air. Hatching caterpillars at first keep under the bark in groups of 20-30 caterpillars each, arranging a common course in which they overwinter. After the first wintering - in the spring, the caterpillars crawl away and each of them makes a separate move in the wood. The moves along the length have branchings. One of the branches usually goes outside and serves as a caterpillar for expelling excrement. After overwintering for the second time, the caterpillars of the odoriferous woodworm pupate in the wood in spring, located at the entrance hole. Less commonly, they crawl out of the wood in search of new places to pupate. Trees inhabited by woodworm caterpillars are greatly weakened, become unstable to fungal and other diseases and die off. Most often, wood borers damage single-standing and marginal trees from species that have softer wood.
Control measures with woodworms are poorly developed. It is usually recommended to destroy heavily infested trees, clean the bark and coat the trees with a mixture of clay and mullein during the flight of butterflies.
In the literature, there are indications of the possibility of caterpillar poisoning by introducing balls of cotton wool or tow soaked in carbon disulfide into the passages through holes in the bark, followed by sealing them.
Today I saw a huge caterpillar on the street. I live in Moscow, so this seemed rather unusual to me. She was 10 centimeters long and had a dark red color. The caterpillar crawled along the asphalt, I dragged it onto the grass so that this miracle of nature would not be crushed by cars. It turned out that it was an odoriferous woodworm. The creature is listed in the Red Book. Unfortunately, I didn't have my phone with me to take a picture of it. I ran home, took the phone, and it was already gone. Posting a photo from the internet:
But this caterpillar becomes a rather nondescript butterfly:
I found a very interesting article on the Internet about this wonderful caterpillar.
A.L. KALUTSKY,
entomologist, st. n. With. Museum-reserve A.S. Pushkin,
Vyazemy-Zakharovo
Woodworm odorous
Once, as a child, I saw and grabbed a huge fat caterpillar. And she turned around and unexpectedly very strongly, to the point of blood, bit me by the finger. The meeting was remembered for a long time ...
It was a caterpillar of an odorous woodworm ( Cossus cosus) - butterflies from the woodworm family ( Cossidae). Both the butterfly and the whole family are not named by chance - woodworm caterpillars develop inside the stems of plants. The larva of the odoriferous woodworm lives in the wood of willow, poplar, aspen, oak and fruit trees and gnaws passages there with its powerful hooked mandibles of impressive size. Before pupation, the caterpillar reaches a length of 10-11 cm - it is not surprising that biting the boy's finger to the blood does not cost anything to such a "monster".
It was also not in vain that the insect was called an odorous insect - the caterpillar of this butterfly exudes a strong and pungent smell of wood vinegar. This smell remains even in long-dead, mummified caterpillars.
The odorous woodworm butterfly itself is nothing special - grayish-brownish, with an indistinct pattern of lighter and darker spots and thin black strokes on the wings. It is nocturnal, and during the day, like other night butterflies, it usually sits with its wings folded like a house somewhere on the bark of a tree, relying on its inconspicuous color. Unless in size it is slightly larger than most of the “night moths” that come into the world, but not so much as to draw attention to itself.
No, the woodworm caterpillar, which you can’t confuse with anyone else, is much more spectacular. Moreover, it is not often possible to meet her - usually when, having completed her development and having reached the maximum size, she gets out of the trunk and goes in search of a convenient place for pupation. In addition to its size and somewhat unusual, slightly flattened shape, it attracts attention with its color - yellowish-pink below, intense red-brown with a purple tint above. The head is black. The body of the caterpillar is smooth and shiny, only sparse light bristles stick out in different directions. The well-defined segments of the crawling caterpillar roll like bumps of muscles under the skin of an athlete. In general, the spectacle is impressive.
Carpenter's caterpillars develop for 3-4 years, wintering in wood, in the passages they have made. They pupate either in the same place, in wood, bringing the passage out and closing the outlet with soft dust, or in the soil. The red-brown pupa is housed in an oblong cocoon. Before the appearance of the butterfly, the chrysalis leaves its cocoon and moves forward half its length with its head part forward from the outlet of the passage in the trunk or from the ground.
Developing mainly in already diseased, weakened trees, woodworms do not cause great harm, but accumulating in large quantities in the wood of still healthy plants, they can become dangerous pests. They can simply destroy fruit trees of small sizes, and quickly enough. It is very difficult to fight woodworm on fruit trees due to the fact that the fact of infestation is usually detected too late. The signs of damage are as follows: tree sap is released from the passages and drill flour is pushed out - wood crushed by a caterpillar. If a tree branch is damaged by a woodworm, then most often it simply needs to be cut off.
The odoriferous woodworm is widespread throughout Europe, but mainly in the middle lane and southern regions. It is found in the European part of Russia, in the Caucasus, in Asia Minor and Central Asia, in the south of Siberia, in Northern China and in the Far East.
Many times I kept the caterpillars of this butterfly to get a chrysalis and then a butterfly, but in vain. All the caught caterpillars weaved silk threads, tightly braiding with them a part of the glass jar in which I kept them, and remained unpupated under this silk thread. In the end, they simply dried up, retaining their pungent smell. But once I got lucky. I kept a woodworm caterpillar in a glass jar with damp earth. I periodically moistened the earth with tap water. The caterpillar was in the ground at that time. She immediately dug in there as soon as I let her into the jar. Several times I carefully dismantled the ground to see what condition the caterpillar was in. Only after quite a long time did she weave herself a silky camera-cocoon. Since that time, I stopped disturbing the caterpillar and only once a week moistened the earth in a jar. The butterfly appeared towards the end of winter. I found it already dead, and in the middle of the jar sticking out of the ground half-raised, bursting in half and along the skin of the chrysalis.
Happened to me with this butterfly and another one interesting story. Having caught a caterpillar in the fall, I put it in a jar and covered it with a small plastic mesh on top. The next day, I looked into the jar and saw that there was a hole in the net, but the caterpillar was not there. Slightly upset, I quickly forgot the story. But the next year in May, I once heard some rustling at home. Approaching the sound, I saw that a large butterfly of the odorous woodworm was sitting in a glass jar. It turned out that that caterpillar, having escaped, pupated somewhere in the apartment and overwintered, and in the spring a butterfly appeared. But I'm still at a loss: how did she get into the jar?