This is the time of year when we regularly see shrubs, bushes, even whole trees draped in what many people assume are massive spiders’ webs but are actually the larval webs of various species of moth. I’ve blogged previously about the webs I see most often, those of the Spindle ermine (June 2021, and again From larva to adult moth, June 2022) and shown you some of the several species of ermine moth, all of which look very similar (More moth appreciation, September 2025).

These latest webs, however, are a new species for me, and their presence on the Apple trees in the community orchard at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park was something of a surprise as, due to the area being sheltered by a surrounding hedge, I pop in to the orchard quite frequently to search there for butterflies, dragonflies and other insects.

Not surprisingly given the trees they’re living on, these are the larvae of the Apple ermine moth (Yponomeuta malinellus); the UK Moth website warns that the adult moths are difficult to distinguish from the other ermines ‘even by genitalia examination’, so the larval foodplant is the most reliable way to identify them. UK Moths also mentions that, once fully grown, the larvae pupate inside ‘white cocoons [which] are arranged neatly side by side in a web beneath a leaf or twig’. Now that’s something I’ll have to look out for.