The Pendulum
Features
Thursday, September 11, 2003 Page 13
Caterpillars attack Eton
Rains bring Orange-Striped Oalworms to campus
Jeff Heyer / Photo Editor
An Orange-Striped Oalworm scurries across campus trying
avoid being stepped on by Eion students on their way to class.
Our beauty, the Orange-Striped Oakworm
Moth, is yellow-red in color; the forewings are
orange-purple and tipped with an oblique band
and white spot.
West Nile virus still
raises questions
Jason Chick
Reporter
Perhaps you’ve noticed you
are not alone on Elon’s walk
ways. And unless you haven’t
been to class this semester,
you’ve seen the remnants of the
collisions between student and
caterpillar.
That black caterpillar com
peting for space on Elon’s bricks
is an Orange-Striped Oakworm.
Amazingly enough, Elon caters
directly to their diet - oak trees.
Elon administrators probably
never imagined that an infesta
tion of Anisota senatoria, the
larvae’s Latin name, would be
eating away at the university’s
Hebrew meaning - oak.
And though the caterpillars
can’t strip Elon of its identity,
they can ravage the school’s
prize trees.
A late season—June through
October—hardwood defoliator,
the oakworm can have large
enough populations to clear a
forest.
In late June the adult moths
emerge from the ground to begin
the mating process.
The oakworm is a member of
the Royal Moth family. These
beauties include the Luna Moth,
Buck Moth and Polyphemus
Moth.
Our beauty, the Orange-
Striped Oakworm Moth, is yel
low-red in color; the forewings
are orange-purple and tipped
with an oblique band and white
spot. Females can be twice as
large as males and are poor
fliers, which is why they can
often be found climbing up the
trunks of oak trees.
Females lay up to 500 eggs in
a cluster on the underside of oak
leaves, which hatch in one to
two weeks. This hatching
spawns an army of hungry oak-
worms that feasts from July
through October.
This species is nearly anony
mous at these early stages. The
webbing currently seen in the
trees is not manufactured by
oakworms, but is the home of
another species of caterpillars
called Tent Caterpillars. Also
veracious eaters, they can cause
extensive damage to trees.
Once the adult oakworm lar
vae have had their fill, they ven
ture out of the trees to pupate or
spin a cocoon to make the trans
formation from caterpillar to
moth. These adults often cross
the path of people—clearly
marked these last weeks by the
number of casualties—as they
journey to their winter resting
grounds in the earth.
“Just yesterday while walk
ing to class, I watched students
— myself included — stepping
over caterpillars and their
remains, trying to avoid them,”
said sophomore Molly Rice.
The adult will dig three to
four inches down into the soil,
carve a small cavern, spin a
cocoon and spend winter com
pleting the metamorphosis to
moth. Their emergence out of
the ground the following June
will spawn the cycle all over
again.
The adult oakworm is 40 to
55 centimeters long with eight
orange, longitudinal stripes
marking their body. Small, hard
spines protrude from the body,
and, although, they are firm,
they are not poisonous to peo
ple.
However, they can cause cat
astrophic damage to a popula
tion of oak trees. Pesticides are
recommended to control large
populations of oakworms in
order to save prized trees. For
smaller infestations, hand-pick-
ing the caterpillar works just
fine.
Students said they noticed the
scent of chemicals in the early
morning air these past few days
and have seen sniall yellow pel
lets at the edge of the pathways.
Landscaping was unavailable
for comment on whether or not
the treatment was for caterpillar
control or simply lawn fertilizer.
So the next time you come
across an oakworm making its
way along the pathways on cam
pus, you no longer have to deem
it the mystery creature.
It’s merely on the road to pre
pare for the second stage of its
existence, while you’re only on
the way to class.
Contact Jason Chick at pendu-
lum@elon.edu or 278-7247.
Seth Borenstein
KRJ Campus
DeLAND, Fla. - Jonathan
Day suspends a live chicken
below a tree as bait to try to
catch the creature that has killed
more humans than any other
animal. He gloats: "They don't
stand a chance."
They are mosquitoes.
Despite his bravado. Day, a
top mosquito scientist, knows
that in man's long war against
them, the little bloodsuckers
usua,lly prevail. Mosquitoes kill
mor6 humans worldwide in five
minutes than sharks do in a year.
Insect-borne diseases have
ravaged America and the world
time and again for centuries. In
decades past, America all but
vanquished mosquito-borne
malaria, dengue and yellow
fever from its territory but mos
quitoes always come back with
another disease.
West Nile virus was an
African disease until 1999, but
since then it has spread across
much of America, infecting 156
people and killing nine this sum
mer alone. It won't peak until
the first week of September.
As alarming and dangerous
as West Nile is, scientists like
Day say that the ultimate threat
to public health is not the dis
ease of the moment _ it is
instead the delivery system, the
eternal, unconquerable mosqui
to.
History argues that mosqui
toes may be tamped down tem
porarily, their threat contained
for a time, but the bugs always
come back.
Deadly mosquito-bome epi
demics have swept across
America many times before. The
most recent previous one was in
1975, when St. Louis
Encephalitis killed 95 and
infected more than 3,000 peo
ple.
Day and other specialists
worry that even deadlier
Japanese encephalitis. Rift
Valley fever and Ross River
fever may follow West Nile's
path through the United States.
While this year's West Nile
epidemic is centered for now in
Louisiana, the past triumphs and
future hopes of America's annu
al mosquito battle are grounded
in buggy Florida. What follows
is a report from the front lines,
where scientists waging the bat
tle have modest hopes and much
frustration.
Day is a professor at the
University of Florida Medical
Entomology Lab in Vero Beach,
where he predicts future locales
of mosquito-borne disease out
breaks, tests the effectiveness of
bug repellents and tries to calcu
late precisely the rate of infec
tions in mosquito populations.
Day, a 50-year-old former
marathoner, is well-suited to his
work.
One of his earliest childhood
memories is standing in his back
yard while a plane 250 feet
overhead sprayed DDT during a
1956 encephalitis outbreak in
his native Massachusetts.
Pressed by growing concern
about the rapid spread of West
Nile disease. Day and his 9-
year-old son, Spencer, interrupt
ed a beach vacation this month
to conduct a first-of-its-kind
experiment at Hontoon Island
State Park, about 45 minutes
west of Daytona Beach. Day
was trying to find out how many
mosquitoes in his area are
infected with West Nile.
Day placed a live chicken in
a stocking-like bag that forced
its feathers down, giving mos
quitoes a clearer path to bite the
bird. He put the bagged bird into
a 5-gallon can equipped with
mosquito-trapping funnels. He
repeated the process with a sec
ond trap. The birds spent prime
mosquito-biting sunset and sun
rise hours as bait.
In the 20th century, America
vanquished malaria and yellow
fever with a combination of
quarantine, medicine, hygiene,
and chemical pesticides. DDT
made the biggest difference. But
the mosquito always returns,
often carrying new diseases.