''Dendrolimus superans'', also called the white-lined silk moth, Sakhalin silk moth, Japanese hemlock caterpillar, Siberian silk moth, Siberian moth, Siberian conifer silk moth, Siberian lasiocampid or larch caterpillar, is a

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

of the family

Lasiocampidae The Lasiocampidae are a family of moths also known as eggars, tent caterpillars, snout moths (although this also refers to the Pyralidae), or lappet moths. Over 2,000 species occur worldwide, and probably not all have been named or studied. It i ...

Distribution

It is found in

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Description

The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

is 60–102 mm. The colour ranges from light yellowish brown or light grey to dark brown or almost black. The forewings are crossed by two dark stripes and there is a white spot situated at the centre of the forewing.

Life cycle

The length of the life cycle varies from two to four calendar years depending on population density. The larvae of the males have five to nine

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or ass ...

s, while those of the females have six to ten. Adults are on wing from the end of June to the beginning of August. The larvae (second to third instars and fifth to sixth instars) overwinter under the forest litter. Pupation takes place from mid-June to late July. There are cycles of slow build up of population over several years, reaching a peak (outbreak) followed by a population collapse.

Host plants and damage

The larvae feed on ''

Larix Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus ''Larix'', of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains furth ...

'', ''

Picea A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

'' and ''

Pinus A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

'' species. It is the major defoliator of coniferous forests in Asian Russia.

Subspecies

*''Dendrolimus superans superans'' - white-lined silk moth, Sakhalin silk moth, Japanese hemlock caterpillar (Sakhalin, the Kurile Islands and northern Japan) *''Dendrolimus superans sibiricus'' Tschetverikov, 1908 - Siberian silk moth, Siberian moth, Siberian conifer silk moth, Siberian lasiocampid or larch caterpillar (north eastern Kazakhstan, Urals, Siberia and the Far East)

Gallery

Image:Dendrolimus_superans_sibirica_female_dorsal.jpg, Female, dorsal view Image:Dendrolimus_superans_sibirica_female_ventral.jpg, Female, ventral view Image:Dendrolimus_superans_sibirica_male_dorsal.jpg, Male, dorsal view Image:Dendrolimus_superans_sibirica_male_ventral.jpg, Male, ventral view

References

External links

Species Profile - Siberian Moth (''Dendrolimus sibiricus'')
National Invasive Species Information Center,

United States National Agricultural Library The United States National Agricultural Library (NAL) is one of the world's largest agricultural research libraries, and serves as a national library of the United States and as the library of the United States Department of Agriculture. Located ...

.
Invasive Species Compendium
CAB International Lasiocampidae Moths described in 1877 Moths of Asia {{Lasiocampidae-stub