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 (Dendrolimus superans) is a moth

Moth

A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...

 of the family Lasiocampidae

Lasiocampidae

The Lasiocampidae family of moths are also known as eggars, snout moths or lappet moths. There are over 2000 species worldwide, and probably not all have been named or studied....

.

Description

The wingspan

Wingspan

The wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...

 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 instars, 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, Picea and Pinus 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)