Found a Colony of Milkweed Tussock Larvae

We found a colony of milkweed tussock (Euchaetes egle) larvae on common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) at Mundy Wildflower Garden in Ithaca, New York.

---

Ever since coming to Ithaca, New York, we have noticed that this place has a lot of tussock moths (Arctiidae). They seem to be the only moth larvae we can find around here and we have seen perhaps half a dozen different species already. We don't usually bother to collect, sometimes because they are off the host plant and we wouldn't know what to feed them and other times because we are just too lazy due to how busy we are in real life these days. 

With that said, we did decide to take home a colony of milkweed tussock (Euchaetes egle) larvae from Mundy Wildflower Garden today. The larvae, of course, are gregarious. We found them tightly packed together on the undersides of two or three common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) leaves located in a shady area inside the forest trail in apolysis. Several of them had actually crawled off the host plant to molt as well. 

Like all of the Arctiidae we have seen so far, these milkweed tussocks are highly mobile, which is typically an adaptation to find host plant in cases where it would make sense. They are probably used to stripping through milkweed plants which can be quite small and are thus prepared to find more if needed. 

---

Authors
Brian Liang

---