TENT CATERPILLAR • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Tent caterpillar

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/tɛnt kˈætəpˌɪlər/ Listen

noun

Tent n.

A pavilion or portable lodge consisting of skins, canvas, or some strong cloth, stretched and sustained by poles, used for sheltering persons from the weather, especially soldiers in camp. "Within his tent, large as is a barn."

(Her.) The representation of a tent used as a bearing.

Tent bed, a high-post bedstead curtained with a tentlike canopy.

Tent caterpillar (Zool.), any one of several species of gregarious caterpillars which construct on trees large silken webs into which they retreat when at rest. Some of the species are very destructive to fruit trees. The most common American species is the larva of a bombycid moth (Clisiocampa Americana). Called also lackery caterpillar, and webworm.

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Etymology of 'Tent caterpillar'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tent caterpillar" Quotes from Famous Books

... of its energies to feeding and growing, unconcerned with the final duties of the moth with which it is connected just as the indifferent unit of a young Volvox colony is related to a reproducing member of the full-grown organism. Now and then, it is true, species like the so-called tent caterpillar are met with where numerous larvae spin silken communal nests to which they retire at night and in which they remain to molt. The pupa, like the larva, is individualistic and employs its time in producing the final adult form. The mature individual, ...

— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton