The Bugs in the Backyard: Identity Crisis

The gypsy moth caterpillars began to hatch last week, and I have been finding a lot of tiny caterpillars since then. Obviously when I find a gypsy moth caterpillar I squish it (I hate doing it, but they are such a problem), but sometimes I can't tell. Caterpillars often look quite different during their different instars, which are their phases of development, basically between molts. Some–or rather, a lot–of the caterpillars I have been finding don't look like gypsy moths, but I don't know if that is because gypsy moth caterpillars look very different in their second instar from how they look later. In their first instar they are TINY and look all black. I have tried to search for answers online, but the internet is surprisingly lacking in good information on a lot of subjects, and this is one of them. So... I don't know if this is a young gypsy moth caterpillar or not:

It's not the right colors, but maybe those develop later? And I don't think those yellow/orange tufty dots in the middle are right...

But there are quite a lot of these around. In general the books I have only show you what caterpillars look like in their final instar, not the earlier or middle ones, unless there is a radical change, like with swallowtails. So... I don't know what to do when I find these. I guess I can just leave them alone until they start to look more like something, but what if in the meantime they crawl way up into a tree, I don't squish them, they develop into gypsy moths and reproduce? On the other hand, it's basically supposed to rain most of the week–maybe the rain will activate the fungus that kills gypsy moth caterpillars and none of this will matter. I don't want it to rain all week, but I will take it if that's what the result is.

Almost all of the bugs I saw today were caterpillars, at least, most of the pictures I took. In fact, it was such a dark day today that most of my pictures didn't come out (it's hard to focus when you can't really see), so most of what I have to show you is caterpillars or other larvae.

Like the eastern tent caterpillars:

Today they were out of the tent, eating the leaves. There are four on this leaf.

You might wonder why I don't have a problem with the eastern tent caterpillars eating this tree, but I do have a problem with the gypsy moth caterpillars. That is because the e.t.c. caterpillars are a native species, and though they can defoliate a tree if there are enough of them, the tree will usually survive. Gyspy moth caterpillars are an invasive exotic species, and they can, in a bad year when they are numerous, defoliate acres and acres of forest. Sometimes the trees recover. Sometimes the trees die, particularly if there are successive years with huge outbreaks. A lot of people hate eastern tent caterpillars, but it mostly has to do with the fact that they think the tents are ugly, or they find it annoying that there are so many of them, and they wander around later on in their lives. But they are not killing trees, much less forests, and they are blue, which is my favorite color, so... I don't mind them. But even if I didn't like them, as native insects I would just leave them alone, because they belong in this environment.

On the other tree with a caterpillar tent some of them were eating, and a lot of them were crawling around on the tent instead of all piled up together as they were for a couple of days last week.

Another caterpillar:

Some kind of looper

And similar to caterpillars:

Sawfly larvae. You can't tell from the picture, but these are tiny, so small I had to look through my macro lens to be sure that's what they were. You can see the remains of their "eggs", where they hatched from inside the leaf (the sawfly lays her eggs inside plant stems or leaves).