This furry caterpillar looks remarkably like Donald Trump's hair

Jeff Cremer

This caterpillar resembles a US presidential candidate's hairdo, and it has been found in the Peruvian Amazon in a place called Tambopata.

The flannel moth caterpillar is orange and fluffy, leading some people to nickname it the Trumpapillar.

You might not want to get too close, though: these caterpillars are more dangerous than they look.

"Although it looks nice and soft and friendly and fuzzy and cuddly and all that stuff, it actually isn't," Jeff Cremer, the wildlife photographer who spotted the critter, told Business Insider.

Instead of being furry and tactile, these caterpillars actually cause burning and irritation with their urticating hairs, which act like tiny hypodermic needles.

Jeff CremerCremer used a special lens on his camera that can get extremely close up photos like a microscope, and showed the individual barbs on the caterpillar's 'hair', but he had to be cautious. 

"These caterpillars can be pretty dangerous," Cremer said. "I needed to be careful when taking the pictures because there was a little breeze and the stinging hairs started coming off and floating around in the breeze.

"If one of them touched my skin or landed in my eye it could have been a bad situation."

Cremer said that the hairs are used for protection against predators, and these caterpillars also come in other colours, like pink and white. 

In this video he also gives some advice: the next time you see something that looks like Donald Trump's hair, don't touch it.

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