Stinging
insects are equipped with a wide variety of ways to make us hurt, but
which hurts the most? How painful is a yellowjacket's sting compared to a
tarantula hawk's? A bee to a harvester ant?
Fortunately for
us, we don't have to get the answers to these questions firsthand - an
intrepid entomologist named Justin Schmidt has compiled a Pain Index to
give us an idea. The Index rates the painfulness
of the stings of Hymenopteran insects (an order that includes ants,
wasps and bees) on a scale of 0 to 4. A rating of 0 describes a sting
that cannot pierce the skin while a rating of 4 is awarded to the most
painful. The quality of each sting is also described, usually with an
analogy.
Though he has never intended to get stung, Schmidt has
been stung by over 150 species in his career over six continents
(Antarctica has no stinging insects). These painful experiences inspired
him to categorize the stings and so the Pain Index was born. Though it
is obviously subjective, being built on one man's experiences, we're
perfectly happy to defer to his expertise!
Here's some descriptions from the list:
Sweat bee: 1.0. Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
Bullhorn acacia ant: 1.8. A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
Yellowjacket: 2.0. Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
Red Harvester ant: 3.0. Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
Tarantula Hawk (left): 4.0. Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
Bullet ant: 4.0+. Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over
flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail grinding into your heel.
Photo credit: Brian Van de Wetering.
For some more descriptions and explanations of how stings work:
http://io9.com/5912008/
http://io9.com/5836024/
http://discovermagazine.com/
Stinging
insects are equipped with a wide variety of ways to make us hurt, but
which hurts the most? How painful is a yellowjacket's sting compared to a
tarantula hawk's? A bee to a harvester ant?
Fortunately for us, we don't have to get the answers to these questions firsthand - an intrepid entomologist named Justin Schmidt has compiled a Pain Index to give us an idea. The Index rates the painfulness of the stings of Hymenopteran insects (an order that includes ants, wasps and bees) on a scale of 0 to 4. A rating of 0 describes a sting that cannot pierce the skin while a rating of 4 is awarded to the most painful. The quality of each sting is also described, usually with an analogy.
Though he has never intended to get stung, Schmidt has been stung by over 150 species in his career over six continents (Antarctica has no stinging insects). These painful experiences inspired him to categorize the stings and so the Pain Index was born. Though it is obviously subjective, being built on one man's experiences, we're perfectly happy to defer to his expertise!
Here's some descriptions from the list:
Sweat bee: 1.0. Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
Bullhorn acacia ant: 1.8. A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
Yellowjacket: 2.0. Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
Red Harvester ant: 3.0. Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
Tarantula Hawk (left): 4.0. Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
Bullet ant: 4.0+. Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail grinding into your heel.
Photo credit: Brian Van de Wetering.
For some more descriptions and explanations of how stings work:
http://io9.com/5912008/
http://io9.com/5836024/
http://discovermagazine.com/
Fortunately for us, we don't have to get the answers to these questions firsthand - an intrepid entomologist named Justin Schmidt has compiled a Pain Index to give us an idea. The Index rates the painfulness of the stings of Hymenopteran insects (an order that includes ants, wasps and bees) on a scale of 0 to 4. A rating of 0 describes a sting that cannot pierce the skin while a rating of 4 is awarded to the most painful. The quality of each sting is also described, usually with an analogy.
Though he has never intended to get stung, Schmidt has been stung by over 150 species in his career over six continents (Antarctica has no stinging insects). These painful experiences inspired him to categorize the stings and so the Pain Index was born. Though it is obviously subjective, being built on one man's experiences, we're perfectly happy to defer to his expertise!
Here's some descriptions from the list:
Sweat bee: 1.0. Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
Bullhorn acacia ant: 1.8. A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
Yellowjacket: 2.0. Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
Red Harvester ant: 3.0. Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
Tarantula Hawk (left): 4.0. Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
Bullet ant: 4.0+. Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail grinding into your heel.
Photo credit: Brian Van de Wetering.
For some more descriptions and explanations of how stings work:
http://io9.com/5912008/
http://io9.com/5836024/
http://discovermagazine.com/
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