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kennedyh Churchill, Victoria, Australia(Zone 10a) Jun 05, 2011

This message was posted to the BugFiles How-to's forum: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1187264/ I am reposting it here myself so as to show a lightened version of the main image. I am fascinated to know what these are.

The original message from DisneyButterfly reads

Quoting:
Need some of your help this ID? Does anyone know what these are? They stayed in this cluster the entire time we watched them. They went up & down the Memosa tree. If the lead critter moved right...the rest followed. Same if the leader went left. They just kept going zig zag up and down the tree, all together in this cluster. Really cool to watch them, but have no idea what they are???

Thanks!!

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DisneyButterfly Pensacola, FL(Zone 8b) Jun 06, 2011

Thanks kennedyh, one of our daughter in laws has a friend that knew what our little visitors were. Thank you for your interest, assistance with use of this site & help. Info is as follows:

http://collier.ifas.ufl.edu/commhort/CommHortPubs/Barklice%20or%20tree%20cattleNEW.pdf

Archipsocus nomas is a webbing barklouse and not in the true lice group. They are more closely related to the little booklice that you surprise when rummaging through old books. This is a communal web-spinning barklouse. During some years they make extensive silken webs that often cover the trunks and branches of live oaks in the southeastern U.S. The webs are believed to protect the barklice from predators. To some, the glistening webs are unsightly, but neither the barklice nor the webs will cause any harm to trees. This is referred to as a NBD, “ no big deal” bug. These insects are scavengers, cleaning the bark of lichens, fungi and dead animal and plant matter. The adult barklice are brownish-black and approximately ¼ inch long. The immature stage or nymphs, are brownish-gray and resemble the adults, except they are wingless. The adults and nymphs feed in a group. When the webbing is disturbed they scatter rapidly as a group and are referred to, in the older literature, as tree cattle because of this herding behavior. There are several generations that overlap. Webbing usually becomes noticeable in July and may become more extensive through October as the colony grows in size.

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kennedyh Churchill, Victoria, Australia(Zone 10a) Jun 07, 2011

DisneyButterfly

That is terrific that you managed to identify them. We have a page for Archipsocus nomas in bugfiles here: http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/4892/ but as you will notice we do not have any pictures on the page. It would be terrific if you would add your images and in case you would like to add the enhanced copy I made of your first photo, I attach it again here without the copyright overlay. You could then save it to your computer and then submit it to that page and it will have your copyright ID on instead of mine.

It would be also of value if you added a comment or two to that same page giving the information from your original message and also the information you have provided above,

Ken

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Post #8614598
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DisneyButterfly Pensacola, FL(Zone 8b) Jun 08, 2011

Thanks Ken, I will do that tonight. I appreciate all your help. Both on the critters as well as the site info.

Post #8618283
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kennedyh Churchill, Victoria, Australia(Zone 10a) Jun 08, 2011

Thank you for adding your pictures. I have used one to illustrate the family in the index as we have no other Archipsocidae images in BugFiles at present: http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/browse/order.php?bid=401]

Ken

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