On the bus, in the trees, on the side and top of railings: Caterpillars have taken over Alachua County.
Tussock moth caterpillars are native to Florida and the southeastern United States and feed on oak trees, among many others. Every year they hatch around the same time trees are getting new leaves for spring.
Angeline Handel, 19, a chemical engineering student at the University of Florida, said there are just so many of them and they sometimes crawl on her.
“Every time I wait for a bus, I find 10 of them on me,” Handel said. “On my legs, on my backpack. I just hate it.”
While the fuzzy insects are a nuisance to some, others find them cute, like biochemistry major Isabella Avellino, 19.
“I think people are just afraid of bugs,” Avellino said. “Or they’re probably not from Florida.”
In the Plaza of Americas on the University of Florida’s campus, there are posters warning people of the caterpillars. On one flyer, in bright pink text, it reads “They’re Here. Run.” And in smaller text below: “Don’t touch. Just run.”
The posters are an art project of three UF graphic design juniors: Gaby Carstens, Oskar Garcia and Turner Toliuszis. The trio made the posters for their “image and meaning” class.
“The project is called environmental design,” Garcia said. “The idea is putting something that changes the way people treat a space.”
They centered their project on the soon-to-be-moths because the caterpillars have changed how often they go outside. Garcia says he and Toliuszis used to eat lunch outside… until the caterpillars started to show up.
Garcia and Toliuszis said they like the caterpillars and want to encourage people not to squish, advocating for them to be left alone.
A UF associate professor of urban landscape entomology, Adam Dale, does research on the relationships between insects, plants and urban areas, like what is found in Gainesville.
He said people should not touch the caterpillars because their small clusters of hair, or “urticating hairs,” can break and get into your skin, possibly causing skin irritation.
If they get on your body, Dale said it's best to flick the caterpillar off or to let it crawl onto your hand to remove it, since they have no hairs on their underbelly.
If you do touch a caterpillar, Dale said you should wash your hands and use an antihistamine cream if your skin starts to break out.
“The main thing is to make sure people don’t freak out, they don’t touch them and recognize that they’re part of the ecosystem,” Dale said.
The caterpillars look to be everywhere of what Dale calls ballooning. He said after a caterpillar hatches and feeds a little bit in the tree, they will spin a silk thread which catches a wind drift. The caterpillar will then fall wherever the wind takes them.
Compared to last year, Dale said, there seems to be less caterpillars this spring because of how cold this year’s winter had been. When the winter is warm, there appears to be larger numbers of caterpillars.
The caterpillars don’t stay this active for long. According to the Florida Museum of Natural History, they are busiest from late February to early May, when they hatch, feed and disperse to find cocoons.