Both males and females have dark colored bodies and wide white bands on their wings that are similarly observed in their sister species, Hemileuca maia.

Females lay eggs on the twig of their host plants that look like a tightly packed ring.

The New England buck moth's binomial name, Hemileuca lucina, was given by Henry Edwards in 1887.

[7] However, subtle but noticeable differences shown in wing translucence and band width allowed separation of the species.

Among the species, each adult moth tends to have a different wingspan, wing translucence and band width.

This hints that moth phenotype varies and possibly depends on a variety of factors including location, temperature, etc.

[7] For adult moths, H. maia is darker than H. lucina and also has narrower white forewing bands with circular spots.

Hemileuca lucina females lay eggs in batches three months after the larval developmental period, which is usually around September.

The flight time of Hemileuca lucina is about two weeks during September and they lay eggs once a year (univoltine).

[1] Females use their abdomen and shift it left and right around the twig and start laying eggs in a half-circle.

Females then re-crawl up the twig to fill in the gaps, which makes the batch of eggs look like a long ring.

[1] It was also observed that females preferred the periphery of the twig for their oviposition location as sunlight was more abundant compared to the inner side.

Defense takes on multiple forms, as larvae thrash, bite and regurgitate when near predators.

Aggregation behavior can be explained by the early instar larvae's tendency to group together to defend themselves against predators.

Group size tends to decrease over time due to various factors including weather, predators, parasitoids, food availability, etc.

During the sixth instar, larvae are completely solitary and display yellow stripes on their back.

[1] Adult New England buck moths usually emerge in the morning, faster than its sister species, Hemileuca maia.

[1] Few predators of Hemileuca lucina larvae have been reported, including wasps, stinkbugs and orb-weaving spiders.

The specific cause behind the moth's attraction to these webs is not known but pheromone mimicry seems to be the widely used strategy in these spiders.

[4] It was observed that C. concinnata attacks each H. lucina caterpillar aggregation and ultimately lays live larvae in the host.

It was also found that the tachinid fly's attack triggers H. lucina caterpillars to separate from the aggregation by dropping off the host plant or inducing solitary status.

In both cases, the tachinid fly then had an advantage to prey on the separated larvae that fails to rejoin the aggregation.

[14] Even if the spines do not contain venoms, they still serve to protect larvae as physical barriers from small invertebrate predators.