View article

Eastern tent caterpillars (Malacosoma americanuum) are behavioral thermoregulations and achieve higher body temperatures than expected for ectotherms of similar body size. Construction of a communal silken tent and aggregation behavior are also conspicuous features of their life history. Operative temperature (T_e) models were used to evaluate the roles of the tent and of aggregation behaviors in the thermoregulation of tent caterpillars. When solar radiation was present, T_e of models on the tent surface were higher than those of models away from the tent. Temperatures of a model aggregation on the tent surface were higher than those of a single caterpillar model. In the presence of solar radiation, the interior of the tent was always at least 4°C above air temperature. These data are used to evaluate the quantitative significance of the tent, aggregation behavior, and orientation to incident radiation in the …