It molts several times, then enters the pupa stage, and in mid-flight, an unsightly brown moth arrives.
It is currently full. Germany on the legs because of the oak Chetnik. People in white spacesuits and breathing masks walk in the parks, fenced off with red tape as if they were crime scenes.
Vacuum cleaners hum and pull in nests of Chetniks. Since the vacuum cleaner wants to clog up from that mass, some burn the caterpillars with burners. It often starves, because by tomorrow new nests will sprout.
The problem is the hair.
The reason for the state of emergency is the caterpillar's white hairs. They are serrated, like a small hook, so they are easy to hook. They cause rashes and itching, in severe cases a skin disease called hives. All can be dangerous for children and pets.
The wind can blow hot hairs several hundreds of meters. But, as long as they are on the tree and do not fall from it, Chetniks are harmless.
"If you don't touch the oak chetnik, there won't be any problems," Mara Tabaković Tošić, a doctor of biological sciences, a retired scientific advisor who has been involved in forest protection for a long time, tells us.
"The Germans are a bit theatrical, with those spacesuits. I was forty years in the forest and I was fine," she tells our newsletter Medjuvreme.
However, it is different when people are allergic to hair. Of course, they have no idea until they come into contact with them. "Let's say, one of my assistants would get all wet when she approached a Chetnik. But she worked bravely with him," adds Tabaković Tošić.
However, there is no cause for alarm in Serbian cities. Unlike the Germans, who avoid pesticides in parks and tree rows, in urban areas in Serbia there is often too much chemistry to bother the oak chetnik.
It is there, but there is no infestation.
Đorđe Marić, forestry engineer, is regularly in the field. Chetnik is a standard inhabitant of deciduous forests, but recently there has been no overpopulation.
"We see these caterpillars all the time, but it's like seeing grasshoppers. But, only when they multiply, do you see the infestation and destruction," Marić told Medjuvreme.
In Serbia, he says, among the butterflies in the infestation, it is the goblet most often. "About every seven years, it gives birth to an extreme generation, and it defoliates everything. So in the spring, acres of forest look like they did in the fall. It weakens the tree."
With global warming, infestations could become more frequent. Because, weak winters without permanent frost do not darken enough offspring of beetles and then there are more of them in spring and summer.
"Climate change affects everyone," says Tabaković Tošić. "In our region, the problem of chetnik pine is more pronounced in coastal areas, for example in Montenegro, Herzegovina, Greece."
When they enter the pupa stage, Chetniks no longer have hair, but the danger is not completely over because the shirts they took off are still there.
The Germans are looking at what to do with the oaks and hairs, but some experts already have advice - to plant more flowers everywhere and thus encourage the development of insects that attack caterpillars.
And who knows, maybe they start using pesticides in the cities.
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