Top ten
A list of the top ten stings and how they feel -- from
The London Daily Mail:
The 10 most painful stings on the planet, by the self-sacrificing man who tried 150 different varieties in the name of science
Most of us will have felt the pain of a bee sting. Luckily most of us will have avoided the dreaded pain of a tarantula hawk or a fire ant.
Justin Schmidt felt all three of these - and 147 other horrible, burning sensations - after a dedicated life-long career devoted to insects.
On numerous fieldwork trips, The University of Arizona entomologist would find himself digging up living colonies of creatures, who in turn were not happy with this destructive human scooping them into bags - and promptly sank their fangs, stingers or pincers into him.
Still, no pain, no gain, and Schmidt turned his experiences into the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, ranking 78 species in a list which, while subjective, was put together by the man who must surely know best, ranking their pain on a scale of 1 to 4.
Number ten:
Sweat Bee
Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
Number one:
Bullet Ant
Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail grinding into your heel.
The Daily Mail story is new but this list was originally published in 1984.
It has an entry in Wikipedia:
Schmidt Sting Pain Index
Posted by DaveH at May 23, 2012 1:27 PM