8/8/2006: Swedish caterpillar infestation

axlrosen points to Boing Boing which points to this horrible image gallery of caterpillar infestation in Sweden.



I'm so very sorry to present you with the images that will fill your nights with terror for the rest of the week. Entire bicycles and trees are coated with the cocoons.



The trees are stripped bare by this stuff, but apparently they come back.





A Boing Boing correspondent says this is probably the "Bird-cherry Ermine butterfly" but Wikipedia suggests it's more of a moth.



What it'll look like when they're done. Not much improvement!

Next time I get too hot at work I will come back to those images. I didn't think I had any problem with caterpillars, but that has given me the cold shudders.

tent caterpillars are fun to eradicate with a can of Lysol and a Bic lighter...

edit: for example...

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*runs away before they get him too*

The bike/tree picture from far away is actually pretty cool. Till you get closer and see the creepy crawlies under the seat. Maybe it's a Terry 'Butterfly' bike seat...

Bad Memories

When I was a kid, our neighbors had a caterpillar infestation. Unfortunately, the little critters don't respect fence lines and that made for an entire summer spent avoiding the back yard. I can still remember trying to walk through the yard without stepping on any. Impossible. Squish, squish, squish.

But it beats the frog infestation my father remembers from his childhood. (Full body shudder.)

Once upon a time, approximately 7 years ago, I drove up to Tarpon Springs with my boss for a meeting with an apartment complex owner. It was a rainy day which is not unusual here in Florida. When we pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex, we suddenly realized the dark pavement was moving! A closer look revealed that the entire lot as well as the grass and tree branches were blanketed with tiny tree frogs (about thumbnail sized). There was not a square foot anywhere that didn't have hopping, squirming, squishy little frogs covering it.

He pulled up as close to the front door as he could get, and I gingerly tiptoed across the frogs, mangling quite a few in the process. It was the most horrible, disgusting walk of my life. I'll never forget the crunch and 'sploosh' sounds as well as the squashing sensation under my high heeled pumps.

Stormie

Mammals squish much better. Ask Godzilla.

First one looks like someone found a bike and a can of spray paint.

That's one bicycle seat I don't wish I was. C'mon guys, you know what I'm saying.

I've seen this movie. Everyone comes out of pods and starts killing the normal people!

I saw the bike pic before I'd paid any attention to the thread title, and I thought I was looking at another strange art installation.

That first one looked Photoshopped to me, especially around the wheels and spokes. Wasn't till I saw the close-ups that I believed it.

Wonder if you could gather enough of that silk to make ya a shirt

Funny as the images at the Swedish website are dated mid June of 2006, everything here in TX is dead by then from the heat. Few bugs but lots of heat and humidity!

I learned some Swedish today.

For JPEG files...
Normala = Normal
Enorma = Enormous = BIG FUCKING FILES!!!

:p

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stormieweather There was not a square foot anywhere that didn't have hopping, squirming, squishy little frogs covering it. It was the most horrible, disgusting walk of my life. I'll never forget the crunch and 'sploosh' sounds as well as the squashing sensation under my high heeled pumps. Stormie

Mmmm... Caterpillar soup.

Bleah! They make bugs big where I come from- once I opened my knapsack at work and a huge beetle about the length of my index finger crawled out and over my hand.

and now yellowjackets in Alabama engulf entire car!

I saw that. It's freaky. I'd be so scared to have a yellow jacket nest that size near my house.

I remember reading about an ingenious trap you can make to kill yellow jackets involving a hunk of raw fish and a pan of soapy (but not sudsy) water. You'd need a swimming pool to kill a nest that size.

I just addressed my yellowjacket problem. I paid $225 for guys to squirt powder poison into my walls.

When I put my ear up to the wall, I could hear the whole nest buzzing. It was very scary.

It took two shots at it to kill them.



They had to go, because they wanted in.

I tried killing them myself with a cheap wasp killer spray and only got stung as a result.

I'm not removing this light switch cover until I have replacement vacuum cleaner bags.

Not wanting to distract attention from your sincerely creepy infestation UT but...

/checks Sweden off the list of a possible vacation destination.