Dendrolimus pini
Pine moth ( Dendrolimus pini ), ♂
- 3.1 Flight times and caterpillars
- 3.2 food of the caterpillars
- 5.1 Notes and references
- 5.2 Literature
Features
The moths reach a wingspan of 50 to 80 millimeters, the females are larger than males. Their coloration is highly variable and varies from light gray, chestnut and black brown. On the fore wings have three jagged, dark brown transverse bands, the space defined by the binding regions may have a different color. Close to the binding, which is the closest to the wing root out they have a small white dot. The males have long, feathered sensor, while the females are short and kammzähnig. The legs are hairy. The hind wings have more or less the same coloring as the front wings.
After hatching, the approximately five millimeters long caterpillars are pale yellow, and covered with dark blue to black, relatively long hairy warts. After the first molt, the drawing almost not changed. The caterpillars are about 70 mm long. They have a gray-brown or yellowish-gray color and light framed, diamond-shaped spots on the back. On the sides they have dense, bright clumps of hair and brown stripes. If the caterpillars are worried, they evert from the chest segments on the back of two metallic blue hair pad.
The pupa is dark brown to black in color and about 30 mm long and 9 mm wide.
Subspecies
- Dendrolimus pini cederensis ( Daniel, 1939)
- Dendrolimus pini iberica ( Saddle Werda, 1926)
- Dendrolimus pini pini (Linnaeus, 1758)
- Dendrolimus pini schultzeana ( Rebel, 1934)
Occurrence
The animals are used in almost all of Europe except parts of the Iberian Peninsula, the Far North and Britain, east to East Asia before. They live in pine forests, where they prefer forests with sandy soils and continental climate. They tended to earlier outbreaks, but they are now only occasionally, but not rare. Detailed studies of large outbreaks, such as in the pine forests near Wiener Neustadt, were operated again and again.
Way of life
Both the males and the females are nocturnal.
Flight times and caterpillars
The moths fly from early June to mid-August, the caterpillars are found from August to June of next year.
Food of the caterpillars
The caterpillars feed exclusively from the needles of conifers, where they are found mainly on Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris ) and other pine species, but they also feed on spruce (Picea abies) and silver fir (Abies alba).
Development
The pairing, which can take place several times, takes place at night, sit by the partners away with their heads and vertically. The females lay on the day after mating their elongated, yellowish eggs in small, up to 30 pieces comprehensive groups on the needles of their food plants. But in the following days, the female lays eggs. The caterpillars hatch 13 to 18 days after the filing and eat according to the temperature until November. They develop at different rates, so they curled up in different moulting stages on the ground, overwinter in the litter. You creep is usually made close to the trunk under moss and needles. The next spring they are active early and then are already grown from March to well into June. Most caterpillars feed in the last instar, but 2-5 days before moulting they eat nothing. Sometimes the caterpillars overwinter twice. They pupate in an elongated, yellowish cocoon on the branches of their food plants between needles. The caterpillars that pupate in early, stay late longer which pupate in the doll than the crawler. Where males less than females remain long in the doll.