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It’s not really the burn but the toxins released by a certain species of Brazilian caterpillar that can really end a person’s life. Nicknamed the killer taturana, Lonomia obliqua has a venom that reduces, in the victim’s body, the formation of fibrin, a substance responsible for blood clotting. Decreased fibrin can cause severe bleeding.
“The person bleeds from the nose, gums and various organs of the body. It is believed that the severity of these effects is related to the amount of toxin released”, says entomologist (insect specialist) Roberto Henrique Pinto Moraes, from the Butantan Institute, in São Paulo. The fearsome caterpillar is tiny: it measures only between 5 and 7 centimeters; but his body is covered in thorny hairs, from which comes the poison that killed nine people in Brazil between 1989 and 1995, the year in which Butantan developed the antilonomic serum.
The greatest danger occurs when someone accidentally touches several caterpillars at the same time – for example, when climbing a tree where there is a colony of them. When this happens, you need to seek medical help without delay. Until the end of the 1980s, the assassin taturana was only found in Amapá; but, since then, it has been seen frequently in the south and southeast of the country, perhaps because of deforestation in these regions or the possible extinction of some predator. The result is that, today, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná and Santa Catarina are the places that record the most injuries caused by it. Together, the three states account for about 400 cases a year.
Curiosities
-Killer caterpillars on a tree trunk: the danger is touching several at once
-Detail of the spiny hair of the same species of caterpillar: toxins that can be fatal come out of here
-The killer caterpillar (Lonomia obliqua) has claimed several victims in Brazil, mainly in the South and Southeast of the country