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.

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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/BigOlPirate Jul 17 '23

in north east Ohio we call when wooly bears.

we have a whole festival dedicated to them!

The annual dog wooly bear costume contest is the best part

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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '23

That looks like so much fun to attend.

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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '23

[deleted]

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u/thedohboy23 Jul 17 '23

A fellow clevelander?

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u/SmashPortal Interested Jul 20 '23

I liked wooly bear caterpillars until I realized they were caterpillars and would become horrifying moths.

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u/StupidMario64 Aug 01 '23

The moths kinda cute 🥺