furry caterpillars: friend or foe?
Since I was little, people have told me not to touch the furry caterpillars' backs because they would sting me.
I have believed it all my life, even though I never got stung by them.
Recently, I have become very complacent about the whole caterpillar issue, and I haven't avoided touching them at all, though I don't go out of my way to pet them or anything. One day I was outside with Gerry and had one crawling on my arm, and he told me to be careful because it would sting me.
It didn't.
Well, yesterday I was burning a bunch of trees that I had just cut, and apparently there's some kind of white furry caterpillar that enjoys crawling around in those particular trees.
My right wrist started twitching, and I looked down to see that one had crawled up under my glove and was getting kind of squished and uncomfortable in there while making it's way around my radius. I flung the caterpillar off, at which point I felt hundreds of little points in my skin, kind of like cactus needles but infinitely smaller. I panicked as stories of killer jellyfish and bees started playing through my head, and I threw off my glove and tried to look at my wrist in the dim glow of the firelight, which was dying since I had stopped nursing it.
To make a short story even longer, after about 2 seconds the feeling went away and I couldn't even remember where the thing had been. Had I imagined it? I was quite paranoid after that, though, and every now and then my skin would start crawling all over again when I'd see another caterpillar crawling on the leaves of the trees as I put them in the fire.
Then I tried boiling some eggs but one of them cracked and the egg started coming out in the pot while it was boiling. Sad.
So I still don't know if the furry caterpillars really sting or not.
I have believed it all my life, even though I never got stung by them.
Recently, I have become very complacent about the whole caterpillar issue, and I haven't avoided touching them at all, though I don't go out of my way to pet them or anything. One day I was outside with Gerry and had one crawling on my arm, and he told me to be careful because it would sting me.
It didn't.
Well, yesterday I was burning a bunch of trees that I had just cut, and apparently there's some kind of white furry caterpillar that enjoys crawling around in those particular trees.
My right wrist started twitching, and I looked down to see that one had crawled up under my glove and was getting kind of squished and uncomfortable in there while making it's way around my radius. I flung the caterpillar off, at which point I felt hundreds of little points in my skin, kind of like cactus needles but infinitely smaller. I panicked as stories of killer jellyfish and bees started playing through my head, and I threw off my glove and tried to look at my wrist in the dim glow of the firelight, which was dying since I had stopped nursing it.
To make a short story even longer, after about 2 seconds the feeling went away and I couldn't even remember where the thing had been. Had I imagined it? I was quite paranoid after that, though, and every now and then my skin would start crawling all over again when I'd see another caterpillar crawling on the leaves of the trees as I put them in the fire.
Then I tried boiling some eggs but one of them cracked and the egg started coming out in the pot while it was boiling. Sad.
So I still don't know if the furry caterpillars really sting or not.