Cocoons of caterpillar silk

These pictures were taken in Teesdale when we walked the Pennine Way in June 1970. We climbed over a style and were confronted with this bizarre sight. Some naturalists with whom we talked at the youth hostel that evening said maybe there had been a population explosion to cause such extreme behaviour. But maybe it isn't so unusual. An article in The Independent showed a picture taken in Cambridgeshire in June 2010. It described the caterpillars as 'bird cherry ermine moth (Yponomeuta evonymella).

I was inspired to put up these pictures when I saw some superb examples on the 12 June 2010 walk near Blencathra Centre on the late Ann Bowker's Mad about Mountains website. Unfortunately the site, with all her amazing photographs dissappeared after her death.

Wikipedia has a page dating from 2007 about the moth, with some pictures, here .

Click the pictures to enlarge and use arrows to move between them.

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