He is abundant in Maine.
And he is one caterpillar to be reckoned with.
Apparently if you hold one of these fuzzy little darlings, they can release some of their "hairs" onto your body and your skin. Some people may be completely unaffected, while others can have some pretty crazy reactions. Kaden, Jesse, myself, and our little friend Moriah were collecting a bunch of these "hickory tussock" caterpillars off of Grampy's tree. While nobody else had any reaction of any kind whatsoever, my sweet Jesse's face swelled up like a monster, and one of his eyes swelled almost entirely shut. He looked pretty awful, it took about three days for the swelling to finally go down, and you can still see the marks all over his face.
Insane.
And not cool.
The Bangor Daily News wrote an article about these guys just a few days ago.
Check it out.
And no touchy.
2 comments:
Oh, no, Amy!!! My older sisters little girl was hospitalized overnight with the same reaction to those little buggers. Who knew? Hope Jesse is feeling better...
I may be looking at a few of these right now.. but they appear much smaller than the caterpillars in your photos. The characteristics are the same otherwise. I'm going to avoid these pretty little critters. I hope everyone afflicted is ok.
Post a Comment