The unsightly but harmless fall webworm

This image shows the protective webbing made by a colony of small leaf-eating worms, called fall webworms. The colony will construct a tough silk net on the end of a tree branch in late summer. These worms will not do any real damage to the tree or limbs they appear on since they only eat green leaves that soon would die and fall from the tree anyway.

In my opinion, it is a waste of time and effort to fuss over removing the web. Winter weather will remove it, and come springtime the limb will grow new leaves as if the web was never there.

In autumn, the worms will leave their web. Each will find a hiding place in leaf litter or crevices in tree bark, where it will spin a cocoon in which it will grow into its pupae stage and overwinter. In spring a white moth about an inch long will emerge.

There are several variations of webworm moths. Some are white with black spots. Some are all white.

The fall webworm is not a bagworm, nor a tent caterpillar, nor a gypsy moth. It is a true North American native moth.