Maine Has a Dangerous, Small, and Very Itchy Problem
Climate change is keeping temperatures higher in the fall, setting up browntail-moth caterpillars to boom in summer.
The caterpillar is roughly an inch and a half long with a fuzzy coat, brown but for two white stripes that flank its back and two red-orange dots near its rear. It has a soft visual texture that makes it seem harmless, charming even, tempting enough to stroke.
But touch an adult browntail-moth caterpillar at your own peril.
“Browntail-moth-caterpillar hairs are barbed and hollow. And inside that hollow tube, there’s a reservoir of a toxin,” says Allison Kanoti, the state entomologist for Maine, which is in the middle of a massive browntail-moth outbreak. Until recently, the insect was constrained to a few coastal areas of the state. This year, they’ve been spotted in nearly every one of Maine’s 16 counties.
Portland, Maine’s largest city, has
