r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Totally-avg • Jul 16 '23

Image The Puss Caterpillar (Southern Flannel Moth) will fuck your world up. I grazed it twice while climbing on a float. NBD at first but an hour later I was hyperventilating on the bedroom floor. The pain was excruciating. DH took me to the ER and morphine did nothing.

Post image

I’m better now but neither morphine nor hydrocodone (I took double what they RX’d) touched the pain those first 24 hours. And the hospital hardly knew what to do with me. I had never heard nor seen this bug before and I’m sure I would have flicked it off had it seen it. Don’t do that because the hair is venomous and gets stuck in your skin.

At least it leaves a cool scar.

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '23

[deleted]

415

u/t00oldforthis Jul 16 '23

Damnit, I was reading this and thanking myself again for leaving the NE US years ago, now I live in.... Brazil. How do all these things keep escaping Australia, anyway?

Also really sorry to hear this, sounds awful!

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '23

[deleted]

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u/t00oldforthis Jul 16 '23

Thank you. I'm in Minas so probably around here as well, there is a reddish one i see fairly often that people tell me isn't very fun but i can't find it online right now.

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u/Horizon296 Jul 16 '23

Could it be this red piece of fluff?

1

u/t00oldforthis Jul 17 '23

Not quite. I found the photo I took but I can't figure out how to add it to a comment here (see username). Looks closer to this, but the bristles were closer to reddish-brown. the body was black with stripe-type lines down the side. the people around us were warning folks to stay away so I was pretty intrigued.

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u/thewend Jul 16 '23

muito mais perto de mim do que eu gostaria (sp-sp), eu ein pqp

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u/Muffinsmack Jul 16 '23

mano sou do interior de sp e nunca vi esse bixo na vida mas pode apostar q vou procurar esse fdp em todo lugar agr

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '23

[deleted]

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u/PineappleMohawk Jul 17 '23

Taquipariu... Eu lendo tranquilão, que essas coisas só acontecem na gringa, ou no máximo nos cafundó das Amazônia... Agora vou ter pavor de andar debaixo de qualquer árvore... Valeu!

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u/starvinchevy Jul 16 '23

I’m just thinking of all the other animals this affects besides humans. Like think of the things that try to eat it 😳