Caterpillargeddon 2013

If you follow me on Twitter, Flickr, or Instagram you’ll know we’ve had something of a caterpillar infestation around town lately. It’s quite something. You’ll look at a tree and think there’s no caterpillars there until you notice that bit of black part is actually a whole clump of them piled on top of each other. Elsewhere, they are hanging off of trees to the point you can’t help but get some on you- it’s like trying to avoid vines draped all over the trail on some hikes.
Everything I know about them I’ve learned from “What’s with all these caterpillars” by UNBC professor Dezene Huber (the exception being a listener who wrote to tell us that they looked after a squirrel monkey once, and it eats caterpillars, too). Per the blog mentioned, you can also make them into wine.
I’ve enjoyed searching out the grossest clumps of them, but I’ve had a really hard time capturing them on film, especially the dangling ones that look like gigantic, tree-sized webs. You can see some of the better photos in Caterpillargeddon2013.