Word: larval
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...fields of Western Massachusetts once or twice a week to collect checkerspots. "These guys are a real pain in the neck," she says, pointing affectionately to the orange and black striped furry caterpillars stacked in plates in her lab. Checkerspots take a full year to mature from the larval stage to the butterfly stage, and Bowers must collect specimens every week or so in order to follow the insects throughout their life cycle...
Entomologists agree that the moths can never be entirely eliminated. But containment may be possible. Early in the larval stage, when the caterpillars are still small and vulnerable, shorter-lived, milder pesticides like Sevin are useful, though Sevin also kills bees, which are needed for pollinating many fruits and flowers...
...same cannot be said of the caterpillars. New Hampshire has been eaten by caterpillars, most of them the larval form of the gypsy moth. Properly, these caterpillars, bristly brown and yellow chaps with red and blue spots, belong down south in Massachusetts, where for some years they have chewed the leaves from increasingly large patches of woodland. Reports of this munching have been received with equanimity in New Hampshire, whose yeomen tend to take the view that something is always chewing on Massachusetts. If there is anything left to chew there after crooked paving contractors and easy-had tax assessors...