I am so sorry this happened. You'll never forget about this chance meeting, will you? Some caterpillar stings are terribly painful and can cause severe reactions. Are you hypersensitive to other insect 'bodily fluids' such as those from ants, mosquitoes and the like? My own experience was with the Saddleback caterpillar. I thought that I had been shot when my arm brushed against the stinging hairs. The bad thing about the buckmoth caterpillar is that they are often found in numbers. So be watchful. Wear gloves. Keep some meat tenderizer with you when working outside. Make a paste of the granules to apply directly to the site right after you've been stung. It will help. Purchase some benadryl to keep on hand for such incidents, both oral and topical. I've seen people develop what looks like broken blood vessels where the spines entered the skin. Took several days for the whole thing to clear up and go away. Tell us how you are doing!

Unless your picture is very deceiving, I believe it to be Eumorpha achemon, Achemon Sphinx caterpillar. I don't see a horn, for one thing. Got any plants in the Vitaceae family nearby? It feeds on grape foliage, Virginia creeper, pepper vine, and others in the family. There are green and brown forms of this caterpillar, by the way. A fully grown caterpillar found roaming around at this time of year is probably looking for a place to pupate. They burrow into the soil, and create their brown, pupal shell and overwinter just fine. I'd suggest that you put the caterpillar in an area where there is plenty of loose soil, and let it get on with its lifecycle. It doesn't need to be near a plant in its host family; the next time it will see the light of day, it will have wings and feed solely on flower nectar.

Thank you for the offer and your timing is perfect. I relocated him yesterday (will explain below), hopefully I did not make things worse. I am a reformed caterpillar hater - not all caterpillars but the ones that cause problems in the garden like cutworms and hornworms, and hater is too strong of a word but hopefully you get my drift. Upon discovering a crawly creature on my plant, I've gone from cutting the leaf and tossing it far away from my vegetable plant, to cutting the plant and walking it over to a shady area and adding a few more pruned leaves and then a couple of days ago I started putting them in a wet vac canister with pruned leaves. Not sure if that is the right thing, any input is appreciated. I put 3 hornworms in the canister but one was not moving so I'm not even sure if I located 3 living caterpillars As of yesterday I saw 2 hornworms eating their hearts out and when I went to check not too long ago one was sitting on top of the leaves. I did not see the others but I did not look any deeper either. Now that me brings me to the big, red guy. When I came across him yesterday my initial thought was to add him to wet vac canister but I did not because he had white marks on him and I was not sure if those were markings or parasitic wasp larvae so I decided to put him in my compost bin which is really just a big tub and sits next to the wet vac. When I went to pick him up I discovered that the end that is under the leaves in the above picture is smashed up, I am guessing that he probably was in the tree, fell from the tree and got hurt, I don't even know if this guy has been mortally wounded but I'm invested now. Later yesterday I threw a few handfuls of leaves in the wet vac and the compost bin thinking that it may provide cover from predators, I noticed flying insects near where I discovered him and also near the compost bin but not sure if they are predators. I did not see the big, red guy yesterday when I added the leaves nor did I see him today, but I did not dig around looking for him. I did a quick online search and discovered that the Imperial Moth caterpillars dig in the ground to pupate and it seems likely that he did that in the compost bin. So my question in all this is, assuming an optimistic scenario and he is not mortally wounded, is there an estimate as to when this guy will emerge as a moth. The reason I asked is that while I will continue to add food scraps and leaves to my compost bin I will hold off stirring the compost bin to give the guy a chance to transition. How long does it take for him to transition? I just want to throw this situation out there, to get guidance, as I said I am now invested and want to see if there is anything I need to doing differently as it relates to the ig, red guy or the hornworms. Thanks.

I know the second one as the Puss caterpillar, Megalopyge opercularis. I've heard that their sting is more painful than that from a Saddleback, which I am personally familiar with. Yikes! For insect cuteness, look at the Puss moth.....talk about cute and cuddly.