“This was stuck to my daughter’s leg after a day of being outside in the garden”, writes this reader about the segmented, brown creature pictured below. “It didn’t bleed when I pulled it off but was definitely stuck to her. It did curl up when I pulled it off. We are in Connecticut. What is it?” Right away, we have to point out that we will only be able to make an educated guess as to what this creature could be. The reason for this is that our reader’s photo is low resolution and was taken quite far away from the creature, meaning that when we zoom in to try and get a better look at the creature, the details become blurry.

Nonetheless, we will say that this could just be a caterpillar or some other type of flower/crop-eating insect larva that crawled onto our reader’s daughter when she was in the garden. It could have gotten stuck because it has sticky bristles, or because it just keeps a good grip. A lot of larvae need a good grip when they climb the stalks and leaves of the plants they want to munch on. Now, if our reader is insinuating that this is an organism that she fears is harming her daughter, or otherwise negatively affecting her health, then she should disregard this suggestion and instead seek the advice of a medical professional. Since we are not medical professionals, we are neither qualified nor legally able to identify organisms which could be affecting someone’s health.

Our reader’s best bet is to consult a medical parasitologist, as they specialize in diagnosing and treating ailments caused by organisms. Primary care doctors and ER doctors do not typically receive training in this area, and many of our other readers have had unfavorable experiences trying to consult their doctors about organisms: being turned away or even being ridiculed. Naturally, we don’t want this kind of experience for our reader and her daughter, so we recommend consulting a medical parasitologist, as they will take it seriously. To find a medical parasitologist or other health care provider who can actually help, our reader can do one or more of the following:

– Visit our parasite care resources page here: https://www.allaboutworms.com/get-medical-attention-and-tests-for-parasites

– Search for a medical parasitologist in their area using this directory of medical parasitology consultants: https://www.astmh.org/for-astmh-members/clinical-consultants-directory.

– Search for a local parasitologist by doing a Google search for “medical parasitologist (name of the closest big city)” or “tropical medicine specialist (name of the closest big city)”.

To conclude, we are not entirely sure what it is our reader found on her daughter’s leg. If they consult a medical parasitologist, and they conclude that it is not a dangerous organism, then we would say this is probably some type of insect larva, maybe a caterpillar, that was simply wandering around the garden, munching on some leaves. Until then though, we cannot say anything for certain. We hope this helps, and we wish our reader, as well as her daughter, the very best!

Summary

Article Name

Segmented Worm on Daughter's Leg Could be a Caterpillar

Description

"This was stuck to my daughter’s leg after a day of being outside in the garden", writes this reader about the segmented, brown creature pictured below. "It didn’t bleed when I pulled it off but was definitely stuck to her. It did curl up when I pulled it off. We are in Connecticut. What is it?" Right away, we have to point out that we will only be able to make an educated guess as to what this creature could be. The reason for this is that our reader's photo is low resolution and was taken quite far away from the creature, meaning that when we zoom in to try and get a better look at the creature, the details become blurry.

Author

Worm Researcher Anton