In her new book, Venomous: How Earth’s Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry, scientist Dr. Christie Wilcox writes about a unique type of insect found primarily in Brazil, the Lonomia obliqua, a/k/a the “assassin caterpillar.” This moth-to-be is unlike most caterpillars, in that it doesn’t have a furry appearance, instead they’re covered with what looks like small trees. They’re actually pretty cool-looking, but don’t even think about picking one of them up, as inside the tip of each spiky “branch” is a deadly venom.
 

 
Getting pricked by one of these caterpillars isn’t exactly ideal, but to make matters worse, they usually gather in bunches, so the unsuspecting who brush up against them are actually stung multiple times. Once that happens, the insects’ poison enters the bloodstream and causes over-clotting. What look like bruises will soon appear, the result of internal bleeding. Other symptoms include pain, swelling, headache and vomiting, but that ain’t the worst of it. After a day or so, all that over-clotting will cause the victim to run out of blood platelets, resulting in a death that is fucking horrifying.

Dr. Wilcox:

Without those platelets available to form clots when needed, the envenomated victim bleeds. Uncontrollable. Even there’s though there’s no wound to be seen. [The sufferer can experience] bleeding mucous membranes in the nose and eyes, bleeding from scars, and even internal bleeding into the brain.

Holy shit, right? Perhaps most upsetting of all is that if you are pricked by multiple caterpillars and end up experiencing this harrowing ordeal, you—and whoever you are with—will likely have no idea what is going on. Aside from the fact there won’t be any visible wounds, most people who are stung don’t feel it, so even though there is an antivenom available, the need might not be realized, if at all, until it’s too late.

More after the jump…

 
No one is taking 69-year-old Robert Palmer—who claims to have found a caterpillar with a human-like face—seriously. According to reports, Toutle, Washington-based Palmer discovered the supposed human-faced caterpillar a few weeks ago on the side of a trough while giving his horse water. “My first thought was to crush it with my cane, then I thought, no, it looks so strange, I’m going to take a picture of it, ” said Palmer.

Palmer has done all the research that’s humanly possible to try to figure out exactly what kind of caterpillar he’s dealing with. “I’ve sent the picture to OMSI, the Portland Zoo, Fish & Wildlife, the Extension Service, The Master Gardeners. People either don’t respond or don’t know what kind it is. Some people aren’t taking this very seriously.”

Palmer says the photo he took is very real and very genuine.

I sent a picture to my grandson, he said ‘nice Photoshop grandpa’. I said I can’t even use my smart phone half the time, much less do some special computer effects. “I had to have the girls at the Shell station send the picture to the local TV station. He knows I wouldn’t lie about this,” said Palmer. The staff at Drew’s Shell in Toutle back him up.

Kay Hanke, who’s known Robert Palmer for over 50 years claims he’s no liar:

“It’s Bob, he wouldn’t lie about anything. He’s just really intrigued by what kind of caterpillar it is, and getting somebody to figure it out, that’s why he’s always talking about it.”

“One lady told me it looked like the devil” says Palmer, “I don’t want nothin’ to do with her if she’s actually seen the devil.”

Apparently Palmer tried like hell to keep the human-faced caterpillar alive, but sadly it died.

It seems obvious to me Palmer is dealing with a “Teddy Roosevelt caterpillar.” They’re a menace out here in Los Angeles.
 

 
via KATU and Arbroath

The masked birch caterpillar, as shown in this video, apparently defends its territory by scraping its anus loudly across a leaf. It has anal-scraping duels with other caterpillars. Hm… sounds like every office I’ve ever worked in, art gallery opening I’ve attended, and comments thread in any given blog post on the Internet. The video is oddly mesmerizing.

The masked birch caterpillar creates its own home by weaving leaves together with silk. Once built, it vigorously defends its territory but, like many animals, it prefers to intimidate its rivals before resorting to blows. To display its strength and claim its territory, it drums and scrapes its jaws against the leaf. It also drags its anus across the surface to create a complex scratching noise. This “anal scraping” message seems utterly bizarre, but its origins lie in a far more familiar activity – walking.

Warding a rival off with your anus might seem unseemly to us, but caterpillars that do this turn out to be rather civilised species. The scraping is based on the same walking movements that their ancestors used to chase after rivals. The other parts of their signalling repertoire – drumming and scraping jaws – are ritualised versions of fighting moves like biting, butting and hitting. While their earlier cousins might resort to such fisticuffs, the anal-scrapers conduct their rivalries with all the restraint of Victorian gentlemen.

These signals and their evolution have been decoded by Jaclyn Scott from Carleton University. They a great examples of how ritualised animal communiqués evolve from much simpler actions that have little if anything to do with communication – walking, breathing, hunting and the like. Crickets, for example, sing by rubbing their wings together, which may originally have been done to release pheromones or to prep the wings for flight. The whistling of wind through the feathers of crested pigeons has turned into an alarm. The competitive knee-clicks of eland antelopes are made by tendons that slide as a natural part of their gait.

(Discover: Caterpillars must walk before they can anally scrape)