Tent caterpillars invade Texas trees, but there's no cause for panic

Photo by Heather Raines

Small, fuzzy, dark colored caterpillars are making their way in clusters up trees all over Texas, and they build webby tents in the nodes of tree.

What are they? Are they a threat? Should I get rid of them? The questions about what they are and how to respond to them are burning up the feed on social media gardening pages.

Insect researcher Joshua Huckabee puts and end to the speculation and gives his take on these pernicious looking bugs in this article at Austin Culture Map.