Palmerworm
From Textus Receptus
The Palmerworm (Dichomeris ligulella) is a moth of the Gelechiidae family. It is found in eastern North America.
The wingspan is 15-18 mm. Adults are on wing from April to October. There is one generation per year.
The larvae feed on apple, hackberry, hazel and oak. The larvae skeletonize leaves and fold or roll them during feeding. It is occasionally responsible for widespread defoliation of hardwood species. Outbreaks rarely last more than one or two years and usually occur during unusually hot and dry springs.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n palmerworm A caterpillar; especially, a hairy caterpillar injurious to vegetation, but what kind is unknown or undetermined. The name occurs three times in the Bible (Joel i. 4; ii. 25; Amos iv. 9) as the translation of the Hebrew gāzām, rendered in the Septuagint κάμπη and in the Vulgate eruca. Some have supposed it to be a destructive kind of locust, as Pachytylus migratorius; but in Joel the name is expressly distinguished form “locust.” The Hebrew name is referred to a root meaning ‘to cut off’; the Greek κάμπη refers to the bending or looping of some caterpillars, apparently pointing to a looper or measuring-worm—that is, the larva of some geometrid moth; and the Latin eruca may have the same significance. The destructiveness of many of these geometrids would fully bear out the Biblical implication. See oubit.
- n palmerworm In the United States, the larva of the tineid moth Ypsilophus pometella, which in eastern parts of the country appears on the leaves of the apple in June, draws them together, and skeletonizes them.
