Warts are small, fleshy, grainy bumps that feel rough to the touch and often have tiny black dots scattered across their surface. Those black dots are one of the most reliable giveaways: they’re small clotted blood vessels feeding the wart, and almost no other common skin growth has them. But warts come in several varieties, and each looks different depending on where it grows on your body.
Common Warts on Hands and Fingers
The classic wart, the kind most people picture, shows up on the fingers and hands. It’s a small, dome-shaped bump with an irregular, rough surface that feels like sandpaper or a tiny cauliflower. The color is usually skin-toned or slightly grayish. On areas that get a lot of friction, like the fingertips or knuckles, the wart tends to feel firm and nodular. On softer, more protected skin, warts can be a bit fleshier.
Look closely and you’ll often see those characteristic black pinpoint dots. If you can’t spot them on the surface, a doctor can scrape off the top layer of the wart to reveal them underneath. That scraping test is one of the simplest ways a dermatologist confirms the diagnosis.
Plantar Warts on the Feet
Warts on the soles of your feet grow inward instead of outward because your body weight presses them flat. This makes them easy to confuse with calluses, but a few details separate the two.
- Skin lines: A callus keeps the normal lines and ridges of your skin running through it. A wart interrupts those lines completely, looking like a separate growth embedded in the skin.
- Black or red dots: Plantar warts often have dark specks in the center, the same clotted blood vessels found in hand warts. Calluses never have these.
- Pain pattern: Calluses hurt most when you press directly down on them. Plantar warts are painful when you squeeze them from the sides, almost like pinching.
Plantar warts can appear alone or in clusters (sometimes called mosaic warts). They’re caused by the same virus as other warts, just different strains that tend to target the thick skin of the feet.
Flat Warts
Flat warts look nothing like the rough, bumpy kind. They’re smooth on top, only slightly raised, and sometimes so subtle you barely notice them. Each one is tiny, about the size of a pinhead (1 to 5 millimeters across), and they’re round or oval-shaped. Their color ranges from yellowish-brown to pink to skin-toned.
The biggest clue is that flat warts almost always appear in clusters, sometimes 20 or 30 at a time, occasionally up to 100 or more. They tend to show up on the face, the backs of the hands, the neck, and along areas where you’ve nicked your skin while shaving. In men, that often means the beard area. In women, the legs. They also cluster around scratches and cuts, which is how the virus spreads across your own skin.
Filiform Warts
Filiform warts are the easiest type to recognize because they look completely different from every other variety. They have long, narrow, finger-like or thread-like projections that stick out from the skin’s surface. They’re typically the same color as the surrounding skin and grow fast. You’ll find them almost exclusively on the face: around the eyes, nose, mouth, or chin. They can be annoying because of their visible location, but they’re the same viral infection as any other wart.
Warts Around the Nails
Warts that grow around or under fingernails and toenails can be tricky to identify because they distort the nail itself. They start as small, rough, skin-colored bumps near the cuticle or along the nail fold. As they grow, they can cause the cuticle to thicken, the skin around the nail to swell and redden, and the nail to lift or develop ridges. People who bite their nails are more prone to these warts because the damaged skin around the nail gives the virus an easy entry point.
If you notice a rough bump near your nail that’s changing the shape or texture of the nail itself, that’s worth getting checked. Nail warts can become painful and, if left untreated long enough, may affect the tissue underneath.
What All Warts Have in Common
Every type of wart is caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). Different strains of the virus produce different types of warts. Common hand warts are usually caused by HPV types 2 and 4, plantar warts by type 1, and flat warts by types 3, 10, and 28. None of these are the same high-risk HPV strains associated with cervical cancer, which is a common source of confusion.
Warts spread through direct contact, either from another person or from touching a surface the virus is on. They also spread across your own body, which is why you might notice new warts appearing near an existing one. Tiny breaks in the skin, whether from a scratch, a hangnail, or a razor nick, are the main entry points.
Growths That Look Like Warts but Aren’t
Several other skin conditions can mimic warts, and telling them apart matters.
Molluscum contagiosum bumps are smooth, firm, and round with a distinctive dimple or dent in the center. Warts are rough and irregular on the surface with no central dent. Molluscum bumps are also typically smaller and more uniform in shape than common warts. Both are viral and contagious, but they require different approaches.
Skin tags are soft, floppy, and hang from a thin stalk. Warts are firm and rooted in the skin. If a bump feels squishy and moves when you touch it, it’s more likely a skin tag.
Corns and calluses, as described above, maintain your skin’s natural lines and lack the black dot pattern of warts.
When a “Wart” Could Be Something Else
Most warts are harmless and eventually resolve on their own, but a few warning signs suggest a growth might not be a wart at all. Squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer, can look wart-like: a firm, raised bump or a rough, scaly patch that won’t go away. The key differences are that skin cancers tend to grow steadily, may bleed or develop a crust that repeatedly opens, and don’t have the black dot pattern of warts.
A sore or scab that hasn’t healed in about two months, a growth that’s changing color or shape rapidly, or any wart-like bump on sun-damaged skin in someone over 50 deserves a closer look from a dermatologist. The diagnostic process is straightforward: a visual exam is usually enough, and if there’s any doubt, a small shave biopsy (removing a thin slice of the growth) can rule out anything more serious.