Thousands of caterpillars made themselves at home outside residences on the west side of Maricopa Meadows. Photo by Raquel Hendrickson

It’s early for Halloween, but some Maricopa Meadows streets were a little buggy today.

 

Caterpillars crawled onto properties on the west side of the subdivision that border farm fields, and there weren’t just a few.

 

“There were thousands and thousands of them,” resident Jason Martin said.

 

He walked outside this morning to see his street, Amsterdam Road, coated in the fuzzy critters. Then he saw them in his yard, on his tree, on the vehicles and mostly crawling into shady corners at the front of his house.

 

His mother Dottie Martin opined the caterpillars were simply trying to get out of the sun.

 

As the wind picked up during the day, the caterpillars were blown into piles along the curbs of the street and in the gutters.

 

Patrick Nicoll, manager at Mule Mountain Pest Control, said the caterpillars would probably be turning into moths.

 

“They have spider-like webs and they’ll mostly be found in corners,” he said.

 

In his work in the Villages at Rancho El Dorado and other properties, he has not encountered caterpillars yet this year. He said when they show up in a mass en masse, they are usually coming off of a farm.

 

Nicholl said the caterpillars are mostly harmless, maybe eating some leaves off trees, but will eventually go their way once they pupate and change into moths.

 

If it’s necessary, he said, any common insecticide will exterminate them because they have no protective shell.

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