Millions of Hairy Caterpillars Plague Australian Town for 18 Months
They’re orange, hairy, have a nasty sting, and show no signs of leaving the town of Yandaran, in Queensland, Australia.
“Like a scene from a horror movie”.
Residents, fed up with the fuzzy pests, have sought the help of an entimologist.
The creepy crawling processionary caterpillars are a sub-species of the bag-shelter moth whose hairs can cause intense itching and allergies in humans and illness in dogs and horses.
The caterpillars are called “processionary” because they “follow each other head-to-tail” and form long chains in late summer and autumn.
The caterpillars forage on leaves of the Wattle tree, at times completely stripping the tree bare. The caterpillars “nest” together in a silken pouch which is located at either the base of the tree, or up in the canopy, depending on the species. Once the tree’s leaves have been devoured, the caterpillars form a “procession” in search for more food.
While the residents of Yandarin attempt to cope with the millions of caterpillars infesting their town, in 2007, the village of Castiglione di Cervia in Italy had to deal with a mysterious plague of their own.
In August of 2007, residents began to fall ill with a high fever, exhaustion, and “excrutiating bone pain” which lasted for up to two weeks.
After an investigation, the disease they suffered from, and the identity of the culprit came as a surprise: the village had been hit with chikungunya, a tropical disease which is a “relative” of dengue fever and spread by the tiger mosquito.
It was the “first outbreak in modern Europe of a disease that had previously been seen only in the tropics” and was blamed on global warming.
By LBG
Image - Caterpillar
