Josh Clark

There's a bacterium called Bacillus thuringienus, I believe, or BT for short.

Okay.

This is a bacteria that people purposely introduce as a caterpillar control measure.

And it goes in and produces holes in the caterpillar's gut and leads to sepsis, and it dies a painful death a few days after being infected.

This is considered organic gardening.

The problem is it doesn't just target plants.

caterpillars you don't want, it targets all caterpillars.

And it's also a pretty terrible way to die.

So I think I'm with you, Chuck, man.

I think you just you say the caterpillars are here to stay as long as they're not gregarious.

I'm just going to let them live and let live.

Yeah.

OK, I just wanted to get on that soapbox for a second.

From the setae.

Yeah, it does.

Apparently it's responsible for 500 deaths around South America, I think total, like in all time as far as documented goes.

It takes a lot, like I think 20 to 100 times to kill you.

But the way that it kills you is it's anticoagulant, a very powerful one, and you die of internal bleeding essentially.

Yeah.

And that actually is being studied.