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RappNature
Sara and Jim Lawray
Rappnature@aol.com
feed. The bottoms of the bags are open to pass out fecal pellets.
By August, larvae and their bags have grown to full size (bags are 1.5 to 2.5 inches long) and the bags are attached firmly to a suitable site for pupation. This is usually a twig on the host tree, but can also be a nearby fence or wall. A month later, adult males emerge from their bags and fly around in search of females. The females, which produce only vestigial wings, legs and mouth parts,'remain in their bags and emit chemicals to attract males. Males arrive at the female bags and mate with females.
Adults do not eat and die soon after mating. Females either lay eggs inside their bags and die, or in some cases fertilized eggs remain inside the bodies of the dead females, which mummify over the winter. Next summer, the eggs hatch and crawl from the wreckage of their mother’s bag to start a life of bag-making on their own.
So now in midwinter when you open up your bagworm bags, they are generally either empty (male bags), or they contain dead females and eggs (female bags).
There is also a third possibility. A bag may contain a dead male and numerous tiny but empty wasp cocoons. These belong to a parasitic wasp (Itoplectis conquisitor) that attacks bagworms during the growing season. The wasp sticks her ovipositor through the bag and lays eggs directly on the bagworm inside. Wasp
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