Thank you! This was taken near Austin, Texas, US.

Austin is nice. Thinking about moving there eventually. I hope you guys were okay after the hurricanes this year, being right on the coast like you are in Rockport. If it makes you feel better, these caterpillars aren't as commonly noticed as some in more urban areas because of the wide range of their host plants being broad leaf weedy plants, so they are in undergrowth areas and harder to see unless you get out in the plants. They can also be problems for certain field crops.

I am from New Orleans originally, and with all of the oak trees we have huge problems with Buck Moth ( Hemileuca maia,) caterpillars. While they look a little similar, the Buck Moth caterpillars actually have a really nasty sting. Salt Marsh caterpillars do not sting.

Buck Moth caterpillars are really neat looking alone with their color and spines, but they tend to all hatch out at the same time en mass, and they actually tend to stick together in clumps and cover oak trees ( their host plant ) to the point they get so bad they fall from the trees. You can imagine how bad this is for pedestrians walking under said trees! I remember as a kid they were eeeeverywhere.

So many they'd get mooshed by foot traffic over by Tulane hospital where my mother worked. People would bring umbrellas and use them while going anywhere near oak trees along the sidewalks, to protect from the falling caterpillars and their sting. I fell out of an oak tree once after putting my hand down right on top of one of them as I was reaching for a higher branch. I had speckled spots from the venom points and it burned like the blazes. They're like little landmines all over yards every season haha.