Ever wonder what hurts more — a honey bee sting or a paper wasp's jab? Justin O. Schmidt did more than wonder. This intrepid entomologist volunteered to get stung by nearly every stinging insect on Earth to create what might be science's most masochistic measuring system: the Schmidt sting pain index
Schmidt is the sommelier of suffering. Just as wine experts use flowery language to describe vintages, Schmidt wrote colorful descriptions for 82 different bee, ant, and wasp stings. Take the yellowjacket, which he poetically describes as "hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W.C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue." The common honey bee sting feels like "the oven mitt had a hole in it when you pulled the cookies out of the oven." The tarantula hawk wasp's sting, which rates a brutal 4 on Schmidt's scale, causes pain so intense it can only be described as "blinding, fierce [and] shockingly electric" — yet lasts only about five minutes.
But these are just the appetizers. At the top of his four-point scale sits the infamous bullet ant, whose sting Schmidt describes as "pure, intense, brilliant pain…like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel."
Schmidt's research wasn't just about creating a bizarre pain ranking — it was part of a larger investigation into how venomous insects evolved alongside social behavior. The more social the species became, the more they needed effective weapons to protect their colonies.
Previously:
• Tarantula hawks swarm San Antonio
• Man intentionally lets himself get stung by incredibly painful Executioner Wasp
