Garden Pests and Diseases: Hairy caterpillars, 1 by Dinu

Dinu wrote:
These are fond of living and damaging the Drumstick tree esp. its fresh blooms and new leaf growth at the tips. They go up there to consume and come back the the trunk below to rest. I'd think they do the eating at night and live in colonies like this. If we touch the hairs, it sticks and can give you a real itch. The hairs have to be removed one by one and I had the bad experience of having hundreds when I accidentally laid my hand on a weed while pulling them out. It was paining for the next two days even after I removed most hairs with tweezers using a watch-repairer's eye-piece - those hairs are so thin! The best way is to burn them off, which I did after I took this picture and felt sorry for those creatures. I had to do it, much against my wish.