maxcelcat | When Insects Attack (Reply)

This is from my hairy ex-housemate Richard (MUK is the Melbourne Ukelele Kollective):

Thought I'd share this with you all. On Thursday I bought a bunch of gladioli to decorate my hat with, as MUK's latest busking session at the Prahran markets had a floral theme. On my way there this morning I discovered the unadvertised free caterpillar crawling up my hat, taking a few steps then waving the front half of itself around like a performance artist's interpretation of Munch's Scream, then a few more steps, another Munch's Scream moment, and so on. Very existentialist behaviour for a caterpillar. As I was on a train there was nowhere to put it, so I decided to leave it on a shrub somewhere at Prahran station, and let it crawl around my fingers. Shortly after that I felt a stinging sensation on my knuckle, so I looked and found this caterpillar had started chowing down on it. Even when I moved my fingers around and nudged it to try to discourage it, it kept chewing. And when I got to Prahran and found a suitable plant, I had to really rub its nose in the leaf I was trying to put it on to before it got the message. For its size it sure left behind enough blood as well. I didn't know caterpillars were carnivorous!

There is apparently more than a couple of species carnivorous caterpillars out there, but none here in Oz. Check out this happy little fellow. Here he is in action!