Subject: caterpillar
Location: sao paulo, brazil
November 29, 2016 5:21 pm
I have found many of this caterpillar all over a bindweed I have at my house’s garden. They are eating the leaves and I have got a burn when I stepped over one of them. I would like to know if it will become a butterfly – and therefore I should let them in peace – or if it is dangerous and I should kill them (in this case, what type of poison I should use).
Signature: Ana Elisa Salles
Dear Ana Elisa,
This is a Tussock Moth Caterpillar in the subfamily Lymantriinae, and many Tussock Moth Caterpillars have stinging hairs, as you learned. The adult is a moth, not a butterfly, and we do not provide extermination advice. Your caterpillar resembles North American Tussock Moths in the genus Orgyia, but we have not found any images online from Brazil of black Tussock Moth Caterpillars with white tufts.