The barbed cactus spines don’t actually jump, of course. But they detach easily from the main plant and hook tenaciously — sometimes painfully — into people who get too close.

As anyone who’s gotten too close to a jumping cholla cactus can attest, the experience is singularly painful — and difficult to resolve, as the cactus’ spines are particularly stubborn to remove.

This unfortunate bull came afoul of a few stems of jumping cholla (Cylindropuntia fulgida). The spines of this cactus are decorated with backward-facing barbs that facilitate entry into flesh, but ...

The cylindropuntia fulgida, AKA chain-fruit or jumping cholla, has a reputation for being a real pain. Brush by one of these guys, and you're sure to get stuck with barbed spines clinging to your ...

The jumping cholla cactus’ innocuous, shrub-like appearance belies its prickly spines’ strength: As a new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals, a single cholla spine ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Beware the jumping cholla, Cylindropuntia fulgida. This shrubby, branching cactus will - if provoked by touching - anchor its splayed spines in the flesh of the offender. The ...

The “jumping” cholla is so named because it takes the slightest brush for a spine-studded segment of the plant to “jump” off and embed itself in a passerby — a painful fact that a 5 ...

We asked multiple plant and medical experts for tips on how to remove cactus needles and other cactus splinters, with or without tweezers.

And the barbed spines stayed anchored. The spine from the jumping cholla cactus even lifted a half-pound slab of pork off of the working surface, requiring the scientists to pull the meat off.

The teddy bear cactus (Cylindropuntia bigelovii), also known as the teddy bear cholla, is a large cactus native to Mexico and the southwestern United States. Don’t let its adorable name and ...

Beware the jumping cholla, Cylindropuntia fulgida. This shrubby, branching cactus will—if provoked by touching—anchor its splayed spines in the flesh of the offender.