quality:correction, structural:expansion
Hosts

Larvae prefer oak trees, but may feed on many species of trees and shrubs, both hardwood and conifer. In the eastern US, the gypsy moth prefers leaves of oaks, aspen, apple, sweetgum, speckled alder, basswood, gray birch, paper birch, poplar, willow, and hawthorns, among other species. Older larvae feed on several species of softwood that younger larvae avoid, including cottonwood, hemlock, Atlantic white cypress, and pine and spruce species native to the east. The gypsy moth avoids ash trees, tulip-tree, American sycamore, butternut, black walnut, catalpa, flowering dogwood, balsam fir, arborvitae, American holly, and mountain laurel and rhododendron shrubs, but will feed on these in late instars when densities are extremely high.