Is this normal? I’ve lived on and off in Helsinki for 25yrs. Moved recently to the suburbs. Currently, 1 in 10 trees are like this. Not seen this before.

15 comments

1. Is what normal?

2. Yes.

   It’s a moth/butterfly called tuomenkehrääjäkoi (no clue what it would be in English).

   The caterpillars make this web to ptotect them and live under it.
   Every now and then there’s a buttload of them and they cover whole trees.

3. Yes

4. The tree is bird-cherry(tuomi in Finnish) and the silk is made by Bird-cherry ermine catepillars.

   ​

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird-cherry_ermine

5. This seems to be going around a lot this summer, my apple trees have the same Web going on.

6. Bird cherry ermines, as other post stated. What’s interesting is that their populations explode some years, be pretty low for few years and explode again. I suppose this is because their predators follow that cycle. Which means, this doesn’t happen every year.

   Edit: And they eat only Prunus padus, other plants are left unharmed.

7. These trees are always so damn creepy when I see them. Usually this means, there is Zombie outbreak starting :\

8. Definitely not 1 in 10

9. Huh, haven’t seen one of these in like a decade

10. Last time I remember seeing them in abundance was maybe 15 years ago. Our football field was lined with the tree “Tuomi” and it was a haunting sight as all of them looked like the death incarnate. Every time the ball got out of the pitch it was a daunting “get out of there” experience to retrieve it

11. Its Tuomenkehrääjäkoi
    Idk name in english but its normal

12. Thats just a normal cum tree, happens sometimes…

13. Same in Estonia.

14. Ainolan puisto in Oulu have two such trees that this happens to on a regular basis. One is between the greenhouses and museum, next to the water. The other is on the cycle path opposite (or close to) the theatre.

15. It’s like a butterfly thingy. They come out every couple of years.