Question
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Central California. There is something eating the leaves of three trees in our yard. A clicking (chewing sound) is heard with brown droppings and small leaf cut dropping. We can only see a few catapiller like creatures on the leaves. Not sure if they are liquid ambers so am attaching a picture.
AnswerYes this is sweetgum Liquidambar styraciflua. My guess would be a caterpillar stage of the Luna moth Actias luna (Linnaeus.
The moth stage are large, beautiful moths with pale green wings, a long tail on each hindwing, feathery antennae, and small markings on each wing looking vaguely like the moon, thus the name. Luna Moths have a wingspan of about 4.5 inches (12 cm)so they are pretty striking when you see them.
Luna Moth caterpillars are strikingly large, green beings thriving on Sweetgum leaves. They feed alone so even though they are large they can be hard to find.
Here is a web link to information on Luna Moths.
http://www.ivyhall.district96.k12.il.us/4th/kkhp/1insects/luna.html
They are not in enough abundance to need to be controlled since they really do little damage to the tree.
