LEXINGTON — An innovative new study has provided further evidence that the eastern tent caterpillar was behind the loss of thousands of foals, but it does not explain why mares aborted their pregnancies.

The eastern tent caterpillar

        The monthlong experiment, conducted by two Lexington veterinarians and a University of Kentucky researcher, involved 15 pregnant mares that were kept in stalls, with no exposure to grass, for 12 days before the trial.

        Five of the mares were fed between 30 and 50 crushed, starved caterpillars mixed with water through a nose tube which led directly to their stomachs.

        Another five were fed only the caterpillars' droppings mixed with water. A control group containing the last five were given only water.

        Of the five that ingested crushed caterpillars, four lost their pregnancies within 13 days while none of the other horses aborted.

        “This is significant,” said Dr. Bill Bernard, an internal medicine specialist at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington who worked on the study. “If you give caterpillars to horses, they're going to abort.”

        In late April 2001, pregnant mares began delivering weak foals that needed days of medical treatment to survive if they lived at all. In the following weeks, hundreds of foals died and thousands of mares lost early pregnancies to the illness, Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome.

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