this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
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You made me curious if there is an insect that hurts you just by touching you and not biting or stinging with a built in weapon. ๐ค
Caterpillars with urticating hairs.
Slap an h in front of that word and it would be absolutely perfect. Hurticating.
Hurticating the countryside.
Hurticating the peasants.
Hurticating all the peoples
And their thatched-roof COTTAGES!!!!!
HURTGDOR!
Caterpillars fit, and there's one species in particular that goes toe to tentacle with even the most lethal of jellyfish and is a seriously bad time to touch, because it's urticating hairs connect to toxin secreting cells that pump out a nasty neurotoxin.
But to me, that's still cheating, in that the most passive and effective urticating hair defense mechanism was selected for as a mere delivery method for venom.
If one wants to see the real absurd intricacies with urticating hair in arthropods, the only game in town are the new world tarantulas.
Entire fricking metas based on 7 different identified urticating hair types and they're so understudied there's almost certainly one out there that probably wildcarded old world venom with new world hair styles that we just have not found yet.
Technically the bombardier beetle does not bite nor sting. Instead it reacts hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone and shoots it out, which when reacted together pretty much instantly reaches 212ยฐf and chemically burns whatever they are shooting at. They can shoot over 500 shots per minute at a given target. Pretty crazy lads
Holy fucking hell, where do these beetles roam so I know never to go there?
Technically, jellyfish are using stingers
Poisonous: harms you if you touch or eat it
Venomous: harms you by injecting a toxin (through biting, stinging, etc.)
I know there's a few poisonous butterflies (e.g. the Monarch butterfly), and I can find a few other insects listed on Wikipedia (and I'm sure there are others not on there too)
Note that "poisonous" has always also had the meaning of "harms by injecting a toxin" (the Wiktionary entry "poisonous" has examples from the 1600s to the 2000s).
Now Iโm stuck wondering the same thing
Poison dart frog?
Famously an insect
You are what you eat, and they eat insects ๐คทโโ๏ธ