Urticating Hairs and Pink Eye

Do you have a nasty case of what the doctor thinks is conjunctivitis (pink eye) that you just can't seem to shake? Are you a tarantula owner? If so, then you might have some of their urticating hairs embedded in your eyeball.

Such was the case in Leeds, England, when a 29-year-old man, upon closer examination, was found to have many tiny hairs embedded in his cornea. When asked about them, he immediately recalled a few days earlier when he had inadvertently provoked the wrath of his pet spider, and it had "“released ‘a mist of hairs’ which hit his eyes and face.”

I don't know how the guy forgot that incident, or didn't consider any sort of causal relationship. But let this be today's public safety alert. If you've been the victim of a mist of spider hairs, don't burden our health system by thinking you might have pink eye. Come straight out to the doctor with your tarantula encounter.

Thanks for the story, Judy.

As for these tarantula pictures, they are but some of the beloved pets of one of our resident spider experts, Jade. Thanks, Jade.