August 09, 2006

Some sort of silk spinning larvae that are turning this Norwegian suburb into a Tim Burton/Terry Gilliam type nightmare

Has anybody any idea what this is?

posted by ultang 18 years ago
  • On boingboing they said it might be: Yponomeuta evonymella
  • Jesus Christ, I wish I hadn't looked at that. I feel ill. I would be walking with a torch in that town. Burn that shit down. Ugh.
  • I've had tent worms or whatever the hell people call them but nothing as sickening as that. In a previous life, I would spray the tented branches with gasoline and light them on fire. Best done with several beers.
  • The fucking ground is covered under that carport-thingy. What the fuck. How fucking fast are these things?
  • BTW, welcome ultang.
  • Awesome.
  • Whatever they are, they seem to have quite an affection for bicycles.
  • isnt'that bicycle pic freaky?? reminds me of the good old days in new jersey hangin' with the gypsy moth catepillars...
  • They do appear to be relatives of the tent caterpillar. When I lived in Oklahoma, we had small invasions of the US eastern variety, though nothing like this.
  • Except tent caterpillars aren't carniverous like these guys.
  • Come on, birds! Dinner is served!
  • The 'little critters' seem somewhat industrious. Unlike most, one finds them fascinating rather than repellant, and wonders whether the 'silk' they produce may be a recycleable resource?
  • Who would want to be homeless and sleeping outdoors in Scandinavia?
  • Maybe any homeless would end up quite warm under that silky blanket...
  • Those aren't caterpillars. Those are elongated spiders.
  • Good point. What do you think the tog value of that stuff is? It might be like sleeping under candyfloss. Come to think of it though that doesn't sound too appealing either.
  • DREAMLIKE natural phenomena? I think not. This could be one of my worse nightmares. bug webs! *shudders
  • Holy crap. That is disgusting and vile. God's creation is sick! Burn it all, I say. I felt scared looking at these photos.
  • Not to poop on anybody's parade, but Flogsta is a suburb of Uppsala, Sweden. I know; I used to live there. I've never seen that mess, though. Pretty cool.
  • Consider my parade unpooped upon.
  • I had spiders do this to my shower before. Twice. Each time they accomplished it overnight. I know they just liked the spot because the dripping supplied water for their babies (eggs everywhere), but the huge web totally seemed like it was meant to catch humans (me, specifically) so they babies could have a feast. The whole frickin' shower was just thick with their web. It would would've been pretty awesome if it had been someone else's shower, and not mine.
  • Caterpillars on a bike!
  • If I came out of a building and saw my bike like that, I wouldn't know whether to cry or vomit. Excellent pictures.
  • OMG mr. kb, that is a horrifying story. I am a pretty serious arachniphobe, and I have had many nightmares of being in a house in which a room, or the yard is FILLED with giant spiderwebs stretching across everything. interestingly, there are never any spiders but the presence of the blanketing, ubiquitous webs creeps me out completely.... /shudder
  • Oh, they're there, Medusa. And they're watching you.
  • Actually, so am I. She forgot and left her web cam on again...
  • Monkeyfilter: I wouldn't know whether to cry or vomit. *gets out hose*
  • RTD, you need to get a life. watching me waste time on monkeyfilter on my webcam while you waste time on monkeyfilter is, well...pretty pathetic. I'm not even drinking wine ;)
  • Webcams...creepy silken gauzes over bikes... I know there's a sci-fi porno in there somewhere.
  • ...while you waste time on monkeyfilter is, well...pretty pathetic. Or in the immortal words of Mandydman, "it's SAAAD..." she was talking about MofIRC but it applies.
  • Yay! Yay! Yay! My bicycle arrives today! It's covered with silk, the color of milk, and the basket's quite full: Hooray!
  • gah! i had to quit looking when i started to realize how many were on the tree maybe four or six photos down. no no no no no no no no no........
  • The combination of the pix and ball point head's lovely verse above has left me feeling interestingly peculiar this morning. Nicely done.
  • And these caterpillars, too, will someday hatch into fluttering souls of the dead. We will see their pale forms tap the window-panes in the evenings when we've turned the lights on. We will wonder, we will marvel, we will call the exterminator.
  • The person taking pictures should have done so at night. Then he'd have a great backdrop for his zombie RPG. Did you hear something?