A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident 

There was a large green caterpillar in the middle of our front door threshold. I attempted to move it from harm’s way. I gathered it into my hand. I immediately felt a sharp sting. I deposited it into the nearest grass. 

I ran to my computer and searched “green caterpillar stings.” It was an Io moth caterpillar. It has poisonous quills. No kidding. 

Standard treatment: place tape over the wound and pull, removing the quills. Wash with soap and water; apply cortisone cream to the infected area. It now felt like only a mild bee sting. Then I noticed the pain in my chest. 

I read that caterpillar stings may cause difficulty in breathing for people with asthma, of which I have a touch. I couldn’t find exactly how worried I should be that my breathing had become labored. It said it was important to be calm and not panic. I had hoped panic would be useful. 

I decided to lie still for one hour. By then this should have passed. If it had not I assumed I would still be able to drive for medical assistance or at least prevail upon a neighbor. I calculated there was some small possibility I would be asphyxiated by caterpillar venom and look really, really stupid in my obituary. 

In an hour I was fine, breathing normally. I seemed to have been stung by only one quill. Had the caterpillar unloaded its full arsenal, who knows? 

Regular readers might remember when I wrote about removing an Io moth from my threshold, which had been stunned by flying into my glass door. I moved it to a nearby bush, where it soon recovered and flew away. This is the thanks I get. I discovered that green caterpillars are often venomous, while brown almost never are. This caterpillar had been a bigger threat to me than any bear or snake I had yet encountered. 

Heretofore my ignorance of the forest has been interesting to me. Today I found it also could be dangerous.