A mum has issued a warning to all parents after her four-year-old son was left covered in a painful rash from playing outside.
Caroline Gel says youngster Oliver was in the garden on Tuesday (May 17) and decided to befriend a caterpillar he had found.
Just half an hour later, he was left in agony with a strange 'stinging' sensation across his face and mouth - and woke up the following day with a severe rash all over his body.
Caroline is now sharing what happened to her little one to make others aware of the dangers of touching these seemingly harmless insects, Manchester Evening News reports.
The 43-year-old from Oxfordshire said: "Oliver was learning about caterpillars at school as his class were reading the whole hungry caterpillar story.
"So he went outside to play last week and took a caterpillar down off a tree. He even made a little house for it. Then around half an hour later, he was complaining about a sting on his face and mouth - my husband had recently cut the grass, so I thought it might have been a grass allergy or something".
The next morning, Oliver woke up covered in a severe rash all over his body. Caroline said it was particularly bad around his face and mouth.
She continued: "We took him to the doctors and they said they were unsure of the cause but suggested it might have been hives so gave him antihistamines to help with the inflammation."
The mum-of-three then decided to google the caterpillar Oliver was playing with - and discovered it was a brown tail moth caterpillar.
This particular species has urticating hairs that cause an irritant effect - when they are in contact with human skin, they sometimes can result in breathing difficulties, rashes and hives.
Caroline, a career coach at Oxford University, added: "Oliver is always outside and is very curious. Normally I would never discourage him from touching things - but these insects are not very nice ones so I want to spread the word and make sure other people don't touch these caterpillars, especially children".
She has confirmed Oliver still has rashes but they are better than they were and have gone down thanks to the antihistamine and calamine lotion.
Caroline said: "Oliver was very excited about caterpillars but not anymore - he's very vocal to people now telling them not to touch them."
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