What are tent caterpillars?
Tent caterpillars are very social insects that stays together as a mass from the egg and spins a silk web typically at a fork of a tree branch. They will spin a nest or "tent" until it forms one big colony for the caterpillars.
Eventually,, after the caterpillar has entered its cocoon it will take 3 weeks for it to emerge as a reddish-brown moth with two pale stripes running across the forewings.
Should I worry about them or get rid of them?
Typically the tent caterpillars are not as damaging to the trees unless they cover over 50% of the tree and then should be killed using insecticides.
They normally are harmless and are up to the home owner where the tree is if they want the insects removed. It's more of an unsightly thing than anything. If not wanting to use insecticides you can also trim off the tent nests as they are normally found on the outside of the tree and don't need much trimming.
However, leaving them in the tree is also helpful to birds as 60 different types of birds will eat these caterpillars.
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