A colleague in central Pennsylvania has found black locusts with the bark flaking off. It appears from images that it's the outer bark, but not sure yet. This is occurring on small trees to about 8 inch caliper, and is on the trunks and lower banches. It looks much like squirrel stripping, but there are no incisor marks, no indication of chewing, and no pieces of bark found under the trees.

This sounds something like what John Paul Sanborn discussed in August 1999 in the thread link below. Has anyone had any experience with this?

Reply to post by Russ Carlson, on August 22, 2001 at 22:37:51:

The ones I was asked about had noticable wilt of entire branches.

I ve seen birds go after exfoliating bark like that....what would be nesting now? (and robinia arent exactly exfoliating types either.)