Yes, females carry a lot of eggs!

I dissected this female Fall Cankerworm today (Alsophila pometari) and lo and behold she was packed with eggs, right up to her head, see: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/40243107 As I wrote on this post, I had been intrigued earlier by the huge number of large eggs a female can lay, see: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/38406580 Looks like a female at this stage is an egg case that has retained the ability to climb and release eggs when she gets to foliage, nothing else!

You can see why an army of females might prompt the use of tree bands. On that note, for this year, this seems not to be a concern. Since my last journal post I've surveyed 62 trees and have only seen this one female and one male Fall Cankerwrom.

Ken

Posted on 19 de março de 2020, 06:07 PM by kenkneidel