Species Choristoneura pinus - Jack Pine Budworm - Hodges#3643

3643

Pitch Pine Budworm

Choristoneura pinus Freeman, 1953

Specific epithet for the larval host (Pinus).

Wingspan 15-28 mm in female; 18-24 mm in male.

Larva to 20-23 mm. (1)

Adult - forewing reddish mottled with irregular silvery or yellowish bands and blotches; hindwing gray.

British Columbia to New Brunswick and adjacent parts of United States.

Jack Pine stands and Scots Pine plantations.

Adults fly from July to September.

Larvae from August to June (overwinters).

Mostly on jack pine but will also feed on Scots (Pinus sylvestris), lodgepole (Pinus contorta), and red (Pinus resinosa) pine. (1)

Eggs are laid in July on needles in upper part of tree and hatch about 10 days later; newly-hatched larvae do not feed and spin small silk shelters (hibernacula) in bark crevices in which they overwinter; in spring of the following year, young larvae feed on staminate flowers, cones, old needles, and bark of twigs; larval development occurs in a shelter composed of foliage of a few twigs connected by loose strands of silk; pupation generally occurs on the same shoot. [adapted from text at Canadian Forest Service]

Numbers are highest, and outbreaks most common in Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.

Moth Photographers Group

Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station

E.H. Strickland Entomological Museum (1)