Ouch!

Here's a biology question for you. How do you look up a weird-looking thingmajig--make that a weird-looking thingmajig that stings to high heaven--if you don't know what to call it?

You google it, of course. (Am I the last one on the planet to find Google Images?)

Turns out the headless, legless "mouse" that nailed K-S awhile back is actually called a puss caterpillar, although it's sometimes referred to as a stinging asp and, in our neck of the woods, un perrito (a "little dog").

Also turns out the sting it delivers via cleverly hidden spines is bad news, with pain lasting for up to a couple days and implications for the unfortunate sting-ee's lymphatic system.

Poor K-S didn't get hit quite that hard, but she did complain of pain for hours after her encounter with Mr. Puss--and this is a kid whose pain threshold his so high that if she cries, it's 100% certain there's blood spurting out of her somewhere.

Not quite as Norman Rockwell an encounter as the nest full of cheeping baby birds we watched being fed by their mother yesterday morning--but then who ever said education is supposed to be painless?