Back to Show
Deep Look
These Silk-Swinging Caterpillars Will Ruin Your Picnic
Season 8
Episode 1
California oak moth caterpillars eat all the leaves on an oak, leaving a brown skeleton. Then they rappel down on a strand of silk, twirling and swinging. If you were enjoying the shade, good luck getting out of their way. For the oak, the caterpillars are a bigger deal –– will the tree survive?
Support Provided By

3:37
Why is that yellowjacket crashing your BBQ? She’s gathering food for the nest’s larvae.

5:04
Explore the parasite Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) and ways to help monarch butterflies.

4:14
Floating colonies of red fire ants are a risk for people wading through floodwater.

3:57
These voracious predators cruise belly up below the surface of a pond or gentle stream.

4:55
Barn owls turn mice, gophers and voles into balls of fur and bones known as pellets.

4:02
It’s called nectar robbing: Bees get nectar, but don’t pollinate the plants in exchange.

3:49
Giant water bugs pack one of the most painful bites of any insect, but they're great dads.

4:33
The spotted wing drosophila may look like a common fruit fly, but it’s so much worse.

5:13
Those precious silk garments in your closet were made by the caterpillars of a fuzzy moth.

3:58
Barnacles might look like jagged little rocks, but they have a surprisingly wild sex life.

4:36
Honeypot ants stuff members of their own colony until they look like tiny water balloons.

4:25
What animal sprays acid that reeks of vinegar from its rear end? A vinegaroon, of course.