The Forest Tent Caterpillar Moth (Malacosoma disstria) is the larva of a North American moth, found throughout the United States and Canada, and most common in the eastern regions.<br /><br />These tent caterpillars do not make tents, rather they weave a silky sheet where they lie together during molting. They lay down strands of silk as they move over branches and travel along them like tightrope walkers. However, it has been shown that a trail pheromone secreted from the ventral surface of the posterior tip of the abdomen rather than the silk guides and stimulates trail following. <br /><br />The caterpillar are social and travel and feed en masse. The caterpillars live in deciduous trees, which they strip of leaves after emerging from their eggs. The moths favor oak, sweetgum and tupelo, aspen trees, and sugar maple for oviposition but the larvae can be found feeding on many other species of woody trees or shrubs when they disperse from ovipositional trees during outbreaks. The females lay eggs in masses of up to 300, which are stuck to twigs and covered with a gluey cement called spumaline which prevents them from desiccating or freezing over the winter. The eggs hatch the following winter.<br /><br />Source: Wikipedia<br /><br />This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of HD imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of tens of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at wfi @ vsnl.com and admin@wildfilmsindia.com.
