Cutworms

Cutworms are moth larvae that hide under litter or soil during the day, coming out in the dark to feed on plants. A larva typically attacks the first part of the plant it encounters, namely the stem, often of a seedling, and consequently cuts it down; hence the name cutworm. Cutworms are not worms, biologically speaking, but caterpillars.

Cutworm larvae vary in their feeding behaviour; some remain with the plant they cut down and feed on it, while others often move on after eating a small amount from a felled seedling; such a wasteful mode of feeding results in disproportionate damage to crops. Cutworms accordingly are serious pests to gardeners in general, but to vegetable and grain farmers in particular. For example, it has been suggested that in South Africa for one, Agrotis segetum is the second worst pest of maize.

Note that the cutworm mode of feeding is only one version of a strategy of avoiding predators and parasitoids by day. Many other caterpillars, including Noctuidae and some kinds of processionary caterpillars, come out at night to feed, but hide again as soon as the sky begins to grow lighter. Some, for example Klugeana philoxalis attack low-growing forbs such as Oxalis in the dark, and drop to the ground as soon as a light is flashed on them. Others will climb trees such as species of Acacia nightly, leaving trails of silk, but they leave individual trails, not common trails like processionary caterpillars. The fruit-piercing moth Serrodes partita similarly lives under litter beneath its food plant, the tree Pappea capensis

The term cutworm applies mainly to larvae of various species in the Noctuidae, a large family of moths; however many Noctuid species are not cutworms, and some moths whose larvae have essentially the same habit, which justifies calling them cutworms, are not Noctuids. The larvae of the Turnip moth, (Agrotis segetum, Agrotis ipsilon, Agrotis exclamationis), are well-known Noctuids whose larvae are very damaging cutworms. Cutworms are notorious agricultural and garden pests. They are voracious leaf, bud, and stem feeders and can destroy entire plants. They get their name from their habit of "cutting" off a seedling at ground level by chewing through the stem. Some species are subterranean and eat roots.

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Wikipedia