Elm – Tendrils

**Larger Elm Leaf Beetle (Monocesta coryli)** **is 3/8** **to 5/8 inch long**.

Quite a pretty beetle with its colorful iridescence, the Larger Elm Leaf Beetle can be found in the eastern and southeastern US, from Florida west to Kansas and north to Pennsylvania. Elm is a favorite tree that this beetle feeds on, but it also skeletonizes the leaves of Hawthorn, Hazelnut, Flowering Dogwood, River Birch, Pecan and Plum. It’s most often spotted in hardwood forests and woodlands that have a lot of elm trees.

**The larvae of Larger Elm Leaf Beetles start out just after emerging from their eggs at 1/8 inch long and greenish-yellow to 3/4 inch long and looking like this photo.**

Adult Larger Elm Leaf Beetles chew holes in leaves and lay their eggs on the leaves. The larvae aren’t shy though and don’t hold back, they consume everything but the veins of leaves as they feed.

**A view from below. Looking up at the larvae of Larger Elm Leaf Beetles**

The Tachinid Fly, and parasitic wasps use Larger Elm Leaf Beetles as their hosts controlling to some extend their population.

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Another nod to moths in celebrating National Moth Week (July 17-25, 2021). This moth photo was in my immense file of moth images, unidentified. Many of you might know, I love a mystery and last night I looked upon this critter as one of those mysteries. Luck was with me and I was able to figure out that this is a Curve-toothed Geometer (Eutrapela clemataria). A master of camouflage in both adult and larval form. Here, as a moth the camouflage isn’t that effective against the cedar siding, but imagine this moth in a bunch of leaves and you can appreciate how clever the coloring and shading is. The caterpillar is just as ingenious, an inch-worm disguised as a stick. A stick that loves to eat the leaves of many trees. Just a few of those trees: ash, basswood, birch, elm, fir, maple, poplar, and willow.