| Help. I was prickled by a French Caterpiller!!
While visiting my sister in Brittany last week, we went to a car boot sale in the grounds of a school. I lent against a silver birch that was covered in lichen and felt something scratch my arm, looking at the tree I saw grey/blue caterpillar with orange spotting and sparse hairs crawling away. I immediately began to panic as they have a caterpillar over there called a "chenille processionnaire" ( please excuse the spelling) that has quite a nasty effect if touched. My French is very poor at the best of times and trying to identify this beasty has proved difficult. All I found out was that, it wasn't a "Chenille", but was called a grey and orange caterpillar. It blended into to it's surroundings very well and there seemed to be more around the tree.
I still have a caterpillar shaped ,raised, itchy mark on my arm. This happened at the weekend. What was this and how long before the mark goes?
The closest thing I found is a Forest Tent Caterpillar. I did take a picture, but due to the fact that I thought I faced imminent collapse it has not come out.
Any thoughts would be most welcome.  |