what are these cobwebs

[coffeycase]

i have noticed over the last few weeks that hedges in the local area have these emormous "cobwebs" covering them,

it looks like the cobwebs you would buy at Halloween but on closer inspection it was that each individual leaf had hundreds and thousands of wrigglers on each leaf and these were individually wrapped in a web and where the grubs eat the leaf and then eat their way out of the cobweb so that the entire hedge is left without any leaves and has the appearance of being dead

noone i have spoken to have ever seen this before, even long established farmers have ever seen this and they are everywhere around the area

anyone know what these are???

and there are thousands and thousands of these wrigglers/grubs

YUK

[Don]

all i can say is my da has these at the truck yard we dont know what they are either but they look kinda yuck with the maggots in them

[coffeycase]

is this his first time seeing them as well?

i had visitors from cork at weekend and they never saw them before and we are all country folk!!!

bizarre!!

[Gormal]

Might be the caterpillar of the Ermine Moth. The web is to protect the larvae whilst they munch away at the leaves. Yuck, must be a bit spooky.

[therealreds]

This was discussed on KFM radio during the week and they said it is a moth called the webber moth and that if the webs arent taken away the foilage will die! Here is a link with pictures

http://www.gardenplansireland.com/forum/about2654.html