Rove Beetles

Rove Beetles
Originally uploaded by DrChan.

One patient was kind enough to catch 2 Rove beetles for me. These are the beetles that cause paederous dermatitis when you touch or crush them. As you can see theu are very small, only 1 cm in length. When crushed, they release a chemical called paederin that causes blistering and erythema of the skin, in essense a chemical burn. Interestingly the same chemical is used to treat warts.