Batata quente

Hot potato. I pissed myself when I realised the same saying exists in Portuguese.

These millipedes are very commonly seen crawling across forest paths and slinking up branches. Centipedes are the ones to watch in terms of noxious substances and painful itchy hairs, and these millipedes are actually harmless. But knowing that didn't stop me from doing some fieldwork gingerly today. I joined the ecologist Tara and her student Seimu in the forest as they plotted an area to record plant life and collect caterpillars, to better understand the interactions between the two. A side project of this is to monitor the 'parasitoid relationships' between caterpillars and wasps. Tiny wasp species lay their eggs inside the bodies of caterpillars, which act as unwitting hosts. Back in the makeshift lab that has been erected under a canopy, the caterpillars are reared so the effect of the wasps can be monitored. Usually they pupate and burst out of the caterpillars.

The natural world is a gruesome yet fascinating place.