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Some blow into town without notice, others come in campers, still others in cars. The gypsy moth, spotted in several Virginia counties, is probably here to stay.
Being close to areas infested with the moth (such as Pennsylvania) and with topography and climate similar to those areas, Virginia forests provide an acceptable resource for gypsy moth proliferation, says William Ravlin, Virginia Tech professor of entomology.
Gypsies move into an area in one of two ways: the males, the only ones that fly, can be picked up by a storm system and moved into an area, or the female can lay her egg mass on something like a car which can be moved into the area.
In fact, a siting in Virginia occurred when a family moved to Lunenburg from New Jersey and brought in the egg mass on a dog house.
The moths are not exceptionally large, but they have an insatiable appetite for leaves, especially those on oak trees. In 1980 the creatures devoured some five million acres of forest land in Pennsylvania alone. While the gypsies prefer oak leaves, they will eat, with less pleasure, some 200 species of trees, including pines.
Defoliation alone is not enough to destroy the tree, Ravlin says. About 50 percent of the tree has to be defoliated before it becomes apparent, and before the tree is harmed.
Recurring defoliation, however, weakens the tree and makes it more susceptible to pests such as the chestnut borer and diseases such as the fungus armillaria. “When all three of these pests affect the tree, then its survival is at stake.”
Virginia should not have as drastic a problem as Pennsylvania and- some other states, according to Ravlin. In the future, he adds, “We could have the same problem as Pennsylvania,” but “right
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