CATERPILLARS are plaguing gardens across the UK and destroying one of Britain’s most common plants - the box tree - in just a matter of days. A caterpillar frequently found in gardens and the countryside is the caterpillar of a sawfly often referred to as the The Honeysuckle Sawfly. It's closely related to the cecropia moth (above). The silver birch tree … By Rebecca Perring PUBLISHED: 06:01, Sat, … The caterpillar is the growing stage in the insect’s life and it will moult several times to enable its body to expand.The stage between each moult is called an instar and most species undergo this process four to six times. The feature that distinguishes it from the rest of the birch trees is its flaking sliver/white bark. • Some caterpillars can be poisonous, taking their poison from the food they eat. There is a single row of black dots along the side of the body. They are the Yellownecked caterpillar, often found on birch and other deciduous trees. Caterpillars are part of the four-stage lifecycle of every butterfly and moth: egg, caterpillar, pupa and adult. Fully grown larvae can appear similar to caterpillars and are yellow-green with black spots along their sides. As big as they are, they are really hard to see among the foliage when they're resting. ... as they ate their way through the silver birch leaf. Larval Foodplants. Caterpillar Facts • Although the Very Hungry Caterpillar was a very greedy caterpillar, most are actually quite picky eaters and stick to one or two types of leaf. They use it to scare predators away, so be careful. This is another big caterpillar -- about the size and thickness of your thumb. The silver birch, also known as the white birch, grows from 40 to 50 feet in height with a slender trunk that seldom exceeds a foot in diameter. Many exotic species of birch are planted in urban settings throughout the UK, including the Himalayan Paper Birch , … Larvae of the dusky birch sawfly feed on birch tree leaves. The name of each foodplant links to a Google search and secondary food sources are greyed out. The Maryland Cooperation Extension refers to the larvae as "gregarious" and notes that the insects-to-be generally feed in groups, with the edges of leaves being devoured first. Caterpillars have been spotted 'dancing' to put off predators as they eat their way through a leaf. Galleries for many other parts of the world are being added including North America, The United States and Canada , Africa and Asia. These caterpillars are prey to just about every predatory insect, bird, reptile, amphibian, and animal out there so I wouldn't worry too awfully much about what you need to do. The solitary larvae feed on Silver Birch leaves between June and September and can grow up to 45mm in length. 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