Subject: Bug that carries its home with it
Geographic location of the bug: Larisa, Greece
Date: 04/04/2018
Time: 07:56 AM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: I find this one bug occasionally in my garden and I believe its always the same one I see (I’ve never spotted two or more together). It doesn’t seem harmful but I’m scared to touch it and I don’t want to bother it. It always carries something on its back as you can see in the photo. Sometimes I find it immobile with it being entirely inside the thing on its back. It has six legs from what I can see. I’d really like to identify it.
How you want your letter signed: EntomologistWannaBe
Dear EntomologistWannaBe,
This is a Bagworm, the caterpillar of a moth in the family Psychidae. We located a beautiful poster on Etsy with images of the Hairy Sweep, Canephora unicolor/Canephora hirsuta, which is described as “a moth of the family Psychidae. It is found in Europe. The female has no wings. The wingspan of the male is 20–25 mm. The moth flies in one generation from May to July. The larvae feed on shrubs, deciduous trees and herbaceous plants.” There are also images on Papillon en Macro, Project Noah and BioLib. Bagworms construct a bag from bits of plants that they drag around and use for protection, eventually pupating inside the bag.