What is it this? Caterpillar? Stick worm? Pest or friend?

[ianmcglocklin]

I was checking one of my trees and just breaking off old dead dried out branches and I went to snap this off and it was squishy and soft! Made me jump back lol. Tried to Google lens it but my maple is the only thing it's recognizing. If it's a caterpillar that will grow into a butterfly or something that's awesome will be fun to watch the process, but if it's a pest I will remove it and kill it and keep an eye out for more.

In the third photo you can see it has like a mouth or feet or something that's latched onto that tiny dead branch.

 

[ianmcglocklin]

I think I've identified it, fall cankerworm. Definitely going to remove it as it will grow a sack and reproduce and eat the foilage.

 

[Shibui]

Those caterpillars are generally called inch worms or loopers because of the way they move or twig caterpillars because they stay still and pretend to be dead twigs.
The caterpillars eat leaves and buds then pupate and hatch as an adult moth to continue the cycle.
Definitely remove before it eats too much of your trees.

 

[ianmcglocklin]

Yup, took me a minute to identify it because all the photos I saw were green and he wasn't moving so he wasn't making the loop shape. But yeah I pulled him off and he started inching away, sorry guy squished and in the trash. The leaves on this tree and the other maples near it all had powdery mildew which I think is contained now from milk treatment and also hydrogen peroxide treatment but the leaves definitely got some damage, hard to tell if some of the damage came from the caterpillar as well. All the maples are swelling with new buds and leafing out however, it is midsummer here, probably due to removing some of the bad mildewy leaves and the stress of the mildew. Will keep my eye out for more caterpillars

 

[ianmcglocklin]

Fall cankerworm is a type of inchworm

 

[rockm]

Get rid of it. They're a plague here in my area. They can cause significant damage to foliage in an afternoon. If there's one, there's probably more, particularly if you have larger trees nearby. They kind of "parashoot" in by descending on silk threads from overhanging trees (which don't have to be directly overhead as the silk threads allow them to act like Tarzan and swing in with the wind.). If you see leaves with holes, partially eaten, etc. look for these. They're hard to spot as you have found because of their excellent camouflage.

 

[ianmcglocklin]

So far this is the only one I've been able to find, when I started two air layers on this jm I noticed powdery mildew that spread to my two other JMs, believe I have that under control now and only my green maple shows actual holes in leaves where I found this guy, but now I'm concerned that if I saw one there's probably 50 or more I'm just not seeing. The leaves burned a little after multiple treatments of spray to get rid of the mildew and didn't think a secondary problem was happening at the same time. Hard to tell but here's a couple pics. First pic leave is pretty damaged, second pic is new growth that just looks kind of funky.
Recommendations on how to treat for caterpillars?

Edit, also I've only noticed the mildew or damaged leaves on the three maples, all other plants nearby seem fine.

 

[ianmcglocklin]

Haven't seen any other caterpillars or any other pests, thought there has to be something that is eating these leaves besides the original powdery mildew, even new growth will have the furthest leafs looking brown and dying. The white in the above post is just milk spray residue but the leaves in the second photo look unhealthy and under attack to me.
It seems to mostly be affecting the growth above the two air layers, I know sun scorch can be caused by dehydration which can be a result of unhealthy roots etc. has anyone experienced issues with growth above air layers before? I think I will do a diluted rubbing alcohol spray to kill any pests that may be there, maybe get a fungicide or pesticide, just don't want to spray chemicals on my plant that it does not actually need. The holes in the leafs clearly point to something eating it, and today during inspecting it I noticed a little bit of "mucus" looking stuff at the edge of a leaf or two that appeared damage. Haven't seen signs of spidemites or mealy bugs but something is definitely here.