17 May—Good news and bad news from the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES). The good news is that gypsy moths are gone forever, the voracious gypsy caterpillars never again to feast on the foliage of our delicious deciduous trees (and even some conifers) and make a mess while doing it.

The bad news is that spongy moths are here, the voracious caterpillars to feast on the foliage of our delicious deciduous trees (and even some conifers) and make a mess while doing it. It’s not that the spongy species has replaced the gypsy species, rather that gypsy moths are now supposed to be referred to as spongy moths.

After almost four decades, the goddamned gypsy moths (as they were at the time) came back a few years ago and are once again all set to do their thing in Litchfield County. As if we need them after the irreparable destruction wreaked by the emerald ash borers and other bugs that are killing our beautiful trees.

The spongy/gypsy moths are of the aptly named species Lymantria dispar, which is listed among the world’s 100 most invasive alien species. [I haven’t checked the list to see whether Homo sapiens is on it.] Lymantria, a big genus of tussock moths, is a pretty obscure Latin word for “destroyer” and dispar, the species descriptor, is an equally obscure Latin word for “separate,” alluding to the sexual dimorphism of the erstwhile gypsy moths, whose females are more attractive and bigger than the males and can’t fly.

It was only last July that the Entomological Society of America decided to dump the name “gypsy moth” from its popular and politically correct Common Names of Insects and Related Organisms List as being “hurtful to the Romani people.” Absolutely. And stink bugs are hurtful to stinks.

The “spongy moth” New Common Name came as late as just this January. It’s a translation from the French name for the moths, “spongieuse,” which means you know what in English. That alludes to the spongy egg masses left by the flightless but otherwise alluring females.

But what’s in a name? If you’re old enough: Remember the egg masses? Remember the sticky sticky tape and tar around tree trunks to keep the caterpillars from reaching leaves? Remember slipping and skidding on the gypsy moth caterpillars that fell onto the sidewalks and roads after gorging themselves on leaves?

Remember the sadistic pheromone traps that lured the poor males to inescapable death among other males who thought they were going to have it on with females? Remember Bacillus thuringiensis, the bacterium that finally did the job?

Something not to look forward to again . . .