A tale of a Caterpillar... This spiny looking greenish caterpillar is the larval stage of the IO Moth. At least as long as your finger or better. The spines possess a potent venom at the tip of each one causing severe pain and blisters... The tale... One day, a while back, Belem and I had hiked to the top of the mountain behind Zihuatanejo to visit some caves there. It is a pretty exhausting hike, hot and humid... We reached our goal and visited the first cave, a decent sized hole passing from one side of the mountain overlooking Ixtapa and out the other, into the jungle and near another cave. Belem sat down to rest for a minute and I was poking around looking at stuff. All of a sudden she starts yelping like a kicked puppy and jumping around. I rush over and she lifts the leg of her shorts to reveal one of these caterpillars that had somehow gotten inside against her leg and was stinging the living hell out of her. Well, you cant just grab these things or the same fate will befall your hand, so I grabbed a handful of the nearest leaves I could grab to use as a shield to dislodge the monster. As luck would have it that day, I grabbed a handful of stinging nettles... Needless to say I dropped them quickly, my hand now on fire as well. I grabbed another set of leaves with the other hand, scooped the caterpillar off of my hapless whimpering wife, taking multiple stings in the process. Now we are both nearly in tears from the burning pain on various parts of our bodies... but at the same time we are already seeing the humor in the whole ridiculous affair. So when I found this guy in the yard yesterday, I didnt even bother showing it to her...
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 21:52:11 +0000