Caterpillar Rash
A man’s presumed case of eczema turned out to be a much hairier situation.
In June, doctors in China reported that their patient had come with them with a rash along his wrist, previously diagnosed as eczema. When they looked at his skin underneath a microscope, though, they found distinct hollow structures with “refractory golden walls” embedded inside. They concluded that these structures were actually a caterpillar’s setae, or the hair-like bristles found along the outside of many species—specifically from a spongy moth caterpillar. The man had likely picked up the hairs while climbing a wax apple tree five months earlier, which then caused inflamed lesions to form around them.
Once he got steroid treatment, the lesions and his symptoms went away.
