Curious about the toxicity of Eastern Tent Caterpillars Malacosoma americanum

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Arachnobaron
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Jun 15, 2004
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I was just looking at pictures of moths and caterpillars and started wondering about one of the most common around here, Malacosoma americanum.
I figured they were probably toxic as everything on Wild Cherry trees are(except the cherries).
I found this article which I won't buy an account to read the rest, but it's interesting none the less.

It talks about the caterpillars causing mare's to abort their pregnancies early if digested. Since I can't read the article entirely I'm kinda left wondering if they traced the toxicity to the black cherry tree. The article outline doesn't seem to reflect that.

When I was growing up we raised goats in our pasture surrounded by woods. There were a couple instances I recall where a goat ignorantly "pigged out" on a black cherry tree. We never had any die from this, but they certainly acted like they were dying. They would roll around with a belly ache for a day or two and be fine. Although we nearly lost one who rolled all the way down the hill and was saved from drowning in the river by being cradled in the washed out roots of a tree until we discovered him.

I think that study would be interesting to read, but I don't know how often horses actually eat caterpillars, and if they are eating Malacosoma Americanum, they are probably doing so while indulging on a toxic tree to begin with.
Therefore, remove the tree, remove the problem. methinks.

**Update**

I did some more research and found this on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_tent_caterpillar that mentions the toxicity causing the Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome MRLS not being a direct result of the cyanogenic black cherry tree. according to the MRLS wiki page the exact cause is still under investigation.
 
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