Lonomy caterpillar: the most dangerous caterpillar on Earth

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

Brazil is a country where there are not only many wild monkeys in the forests, but something even more terrible. There lives a creature that hides better than a chameleon, and its poison is the most powerful biological toxin known to science.

Meet the Lonomia caterpillar, aka Lonomia obliqua. Before meeting her, scientists believed that when touching some butterfly larvae, a person could experience only mild irritation on the skin. It turned out that a meeting with lonomy, or a clown caterpillar, threatens a person not only with a burn, but in some cases with death.

This cutie kills several people every year. The reason for this is a strong poison that causes multiple internal bleeding in the body of the victim. It's safe to say that lonomy is the most dangerous caterpillar on earth.

Habitat

So, where does the Lonomia caterpillar live? This caterpillar is the larva of a harmless and inconspicuous nocturnal moth from the Peacock-eyed (Saturnia) family, the genus Lonomia. The peacock-eye family cannot be considered numerous. There are only about 2300 species in it, 12 of them live in the Far East. Russia.

Lonomia obliqua is found in the warm, humid forests of South America: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The butterfly is painted in light brown tones, allowing it to blend in with its surroundings.

On the front wings you can see two symmetrical white spots of different sizes. A thin dark brown stripe runs along the surface of the wings. Invisible among the foliage, the butterfly waits for nightfall.

Unlike a butterfly, Lonomia caterpillars are active during the day. They usually live in the wilderness, but in recent years, cases of contact with them in public parks and gardens of local residents have become more frequent. Most often they are found in cedar thickets, fig groves, as well as on fruit trees such as avocado, peach, pear, plum and others.

Caterpillars love shady, damp places. Tree trunks are ideal for them, where the protective coloration makes them almost invisible and therefore especially dangerous.

Butterfly biology

The body of butterflies is thick and fluffy, with wide wings, which sometimes have an eye-shaped spot. Peacock-eyes are large insects. For example, the hercules peacock-eye, or Coscinocera hercules, which lives in Australia, has a wingspan of up to 280 millimeters, and the Russian pear-eyed peacock-eye, or Saturnia pyri, has a wingspan of up to 150 millimeters.

All Saturnian caterpillars are outwardly similar, they are large and covered with long bristles or warts with spikes or hairs, through the cavities in which the poison from the glands is injected into the body of the victim. All of themproduce skin-irritating toxins to protect against natural enemies, but the Lonomia obliqua caterpillar holds the record.

This greenish-brown caterpillar looks quite impressive, the length of an adult larva is about 7 centimeters, and its entire body is covered with branched, spruce-like spikes. Her distinguishing feature is a white spot on her back, similar to the letter U.

Fortunately, the dangerous period when lonomia caterpillars pose a threat lasts only 2-3 months. After they pupate and become butterflies.

How poisoning happens

Most often, contact with a caterpillar occurs when a person leans against the trees in which they lurk. Touching the lonomia, or clown caterpillar, the victim receives a dose of poison through thin hollow needles.

Poison (LD50) has a destructive effect on fibrinogen - a protein that is part of the blood plasma and is responsible for its clotting. The toxin triggers inflammation in the body.

Symptoms of poisoning

The first signs of poisoning begin to appear within 12 hours after contact with the caterpillar, their intensity depends on the amount of poison that has entered the bloodstream. There is a general malaise, fever, chills and headache.

At the initial stage, a person feels itching and burning at the puncture site with moderate to intense force. Further, the site of penetration of the poison swells and small hemorrhages appear in this area.

Stages of infection development

If the process is not stopped early,there is a hemorrhagic syndrome, manifested in bleeding of the mucous membranes. About a day later, disturbances in the work of the central nervous system and lungs begin, internal bleeding, including gastrointestinal bleeding, cerebral hemorrhages are not uncommon, pathological hemolysis (destruction of red blood cells), damage to kidney nephrons, which leads to severe renal failure.

In case of damage to lonomia poison, the victim must be provided with complete rest, laid down to avoid bleeding, and taken to a doctor.

Fortunately, just touching a lonomia caterpillar is not enough to cause great harm to a person's he alth, let alone kill him. Despite the toxicity of the poison, only a small amount of it enters the body through a puncture. The dose received from 20-100 punctures can be dangerous.

This happens most often when coming into contact with several caterpillars at the same time, which, alas, is not so uncommon, since the caterpillars most often gather in dense groups. Below, in the photo, lonomy caterpillars on the bark of a tree. It is difficult to notice such a colony, given the coloration and their love of dark places.

Quite often, poisoning with the toxin of the lonomia caterpillar ends in death. From ten to thirty deaths are registered annually, about the same number of people remain disabled. At the moment, according to statistics, the mortality rate is 1.7%.

For comparison, the same death rate from a rattlesnake bite is 1.8%. It is noteworthy that the proportion of lonomy poison is only 0,001% of the poison contained in the bite of a rattlesnake. Pretty demonstrative characterization of the lethal force that this little girl possesses, isn't it?

Brazilian doctors have now developed an antidote that neutralizes the poison of lonomia. However, it must be administered within 24 hours after the injury, and this is not always possible, since the victim, as a rule, does not attach much importance to the incident and attributes the primary symptoms to a common ailment or a cold.

Use of lonomia poison in medicine

There is a bright side to this whole sad story. The poison of the lonomia caterpillar, being a powerful anticoagulant, that is, a substance that prevents blood clotting, can help many people avoid problems associated with increased blood viscosity and blood clots. Research in this direction is ongoing.

Historical background

The caterpillar was first talked about in 1983, when in one of the agricultural communities of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil, dozens of people turned to doctors complaining of malaise and strange hematomas all over their bodies, which over time increased. This was the first documented case of mass envenomation of a Lonomia larva. One question remains: why does this caterpillar have such a strong poison?