Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a family of small flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word mosquito is Spanish and Portuguese for little fly. Mosquitoes have a slender segmented body, one pair of wings, three pairs of long hair-like legs, and specialized, highly elongated, piercing-sucking mouthparts. All mosquitoes drink nectar from flowers; females of some species have in addition adapted to drink blood. The group diversified during the Cretaceous period. Evolutionary biologists view mosquitoes as micropredators, small animals that parasitise larger ones by drinking their blood without immediately killing them. Medical parasitologists view mosquitoes instead as vectors of disease, carrying protozoan parasites or bacterial or viral pathogens from one host to another.
Dermatitis is a term used for different types of skin inflammation, typically characterized by itchiness, redness and a rash. In cases of short duration, there may be small blisters, while in long-term cases the skin may become thickened. The area of skin involved can vary from small to covering the entire body. Dermatitis is also called eczema but the same term is often used for the most common type of skin inflammation, atopic dermatitis.
Irritant diaper dermatitis is a generic term applied to skin rash in the diaper area that are caused by various skin disorders and/or irritants.
The rove beetles are a family (Staphylinidae) of beetles, primarily distinguished by their short elytra that typically leave more than half of their abdominal segments exposed. With over 66,000 species in thousands of genera, the group is the largest family in the beetle order, and one of the largest families of organisms. It is an ancient group, with fossilized rove beetles known from the Triassic, 200 million years ago, and possibly even earlier if the genus Leehermania proves to be a member of this family. They are an ecologically and morphologically diverse group of beetles, and commonly encountered in terrestrial ecosystems.
Contact dermatitis is a type of acute or chronic inflammation of the skin caused by exposure to chemical or physical agents. Symptoms of contact dermatitis can include itchy or dry skin, a red rash, bumps, blisters, or swelling. These rashes are not contagious or life-threatening, but can be very uncomfortable.
Antipruritics, abirritants, or anti-itch drugs, are medications that inhibit the itching often associated with sunburns, allergic reactions, eczema, psoriasis, chickenpox, fungal infections, insect bites and stings like those from mosquitoes, fleas, and mites, and contact dermatitis and urticaria caused by plants such as poison ivy or stinging nettle. It can also be caused by chronic kidney disease and related conditions.
Dyshidrosis is a type of dermatitis, characterized by itchy vesicles of 1–2 mm in size, on the palms of the hands, sides of fingers, or bottoms of the feet. Outbreaks usually conclude within three to four weeks, but often recur. Repeated attacks may result in fissures and skin thickening. The cause of the condition is not known.
Atopic dermatitis (AD), also known as atopic eczema, is a long-term type of inflammation of the skin. AD is also often called simply eczema but the same term is also used to refer to dermatitis, the larger group of skin conditions. AD results in itchy, red, swollen, and cracked skin. Clear fluid may come from the affected areas, which can thicken over time.
A bee sting is the wound and pain caused by the stinger of a female bee puncturing skin. Bee stings differ from insect bites, with the venom of stinging insects having considerable chemical variation. The reaction of a person to a bee sting may vary according to the bee species. While bee stinger venom is slightly acidic and causes only mild pain in most people, allergic reactions may occur in people with allergies to venom components.
Perioral dermatitis, also known as periorificial dermatitis, is a common type of inflammatory skin rash. Symptoms include multiple small (1–2 mm) bumps and blisters sometimes with background redness and scale, localized to the skin around the mouth and nostrils. Less commonly, the eyes and genitalia may be involved. It can be persistent or recurring, and resembles particularly rosacea and to some extent acne and allergic dermatitis. The term "dermatitis" is a misnomer because this is not an eczematous process.
Pederin is a vesicant toxic amide with two tetrahydropyran rings, found in the haemolymph of the beetle genus Paederus, including the Nairobi fly, belonging to the family Staphylinidae. It was first characterized by processing 25 million field-collected P. fuscipes. It makes up approximately 0.025% of an insects weight.
Phytophotodermatitis, also known as berloque dermatitis, margarita photodermatitis, lime disease or lime phytodermatitis is a cutaneous phototoxic inflammatory reaction resulting from contact with a light-sensitizing botanical agent followed by exposure to ultraviolet A (UV-A) light. Symptoms include erythema, edema, blisters, and delayed hyperpigmentation. Heat and moisture tend to exacerbate the reaction.
Jellyfish dermatitis is a cutaneous condition caused by stings from a jellyfish.
Blister beetle dermatitis is a cutaneous condition that occurs after contact with any of several types of beetles, including those from the Meloidae and Oedemeridae families. Blister beetles secrete an irritant called cantharidin, a vesicant that can get onto humans if they touch the beetles.
Ant venom is any of, or a mixture of, irritants and toxins inflicted by ants. Most ants spray or inject a venom, the main constituent of which is formic acid only in the case of subfamily Formicinae.
Airbag dermatitis is skin irritation secondary to the deployment of airbags. The diagnosis of "air bag dermatitis" is relatively recent; the first case was reported in 1994.
Paederus dermatitis, medically known as dermatitis linearis, is a skin irritation resulting from contact with the hemolymph of certain rove beetles, a group that belongs to the insect order Coleoptera and the genus Paederus. Other local names given to Paederus dermatitis include spider-lick, whiplash dermatitis, and Nairobi fly dermatitis.
Many species of arthropods can bite or sting human beings. These bites and stings generally occur as a defense mechanism or during normal arthropod feeding. While most cases cause self-limited irritation, medically relevant complications include envenomation, allergic reactions, and transmission of vector-borne diseases.
Paederus is a genus of small beetles of the family Staphylinidae. With 622 valid species assigned by 1987 to the subtribe Paederina, and with all but 148 within Paederus itself, the genus is large. Due to toxins in the hemolymph of some species within this genus, it has given its name to paederus dermatitis, a characteristic skin irritation that occurs if one of the insects is crushed against skin. That name, Paederus dermatitis, is a poor choice because, decades earlier, the affliction had been called dermatitis linearis, a name that works in all languages, not just English, because of its Latin origin; the name Paederus dermatitis is also inappropriate because it has shown to be caused by (a) only a few species of the genus Paederus, but (b) also a few species that belong to closely related genera within the subtribe Paederina. A scholarly paper in 2002 suggested that a Paederus species could have been responsible for some of the ten Plagues of Egypt described in the Bible's Book of Exodus.
