After more than 100 years apart, webworms devastate New Zealand parsnips

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After more than 100 years in New Zealand without their webworm enemies newly infested parsnip plants are highly susceptible to the destruction caused by the webworm caterpillars. Credit: Photo by Art Zangerl
After more than 100 years in New Zealand without their webworm enemies, newly infested parsnip plants are highly susceptible to the destruction caused by the webworm caterpillars. Credit: Photo by Art Zangerl

What could be lower than the lowly parsnip, a root once prized for its portable starchiness but which was long ago displaced by the more palatable potato? Perhaps only the parsnip webworm gets less respect. An age-old enemy of the parsnip, the webworm is one of very few insects able to overcome the plant’s chemical defenses. The tenacious parsnip webworm has followed the weedy version of the parsnip in its transit from its ancestral home in Eurasia to Europe, North America and – most recently – New Zealand.


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