Small But Terrible: 5 Most Painful Insect Bites in the World

Not many would go in so much trouble to measure pain. Besides, most people should not volunteer to be stung to assess the discomfort.

Fortunately for the rest of us, Justin O. Schmidt, an entomologist, set out to do just that. Schmidt plucked a honey bee from a flower when he was seven years old and put it on his teacher's shoulder. Schmidt's obsession with insect defense mechanisms increased as the bee quickly reinforced Schmidt's suspicion that it could sting.

His action effectively developed a quick and easy ranking of the most painful insect stings is impossible. 

Schmidt created a pain map, now known as the Schmidt Pain Index, later in his scientific career to better compare the pain of different insect stings. He has been stung by 150 various insects throughout his lifetime, making him an authority about which stings are the most painful.

Justin Schmidt's study has identified five of the most intense insect stings, which we will look at on this list. The Schmidt Pain Index rates insect stings on a scale of 0 to 4, with 0 indicating no pain and 4 indicating excruciating pain. 

According to Schmidt, here are the 5 most painful insect stings in the world!

Related Article: Study Shows How People Can Learn Systemic Stability from Ants

5 Western Honey Bee

The stinger is a modified ovipositor used by queens and workers to protect the hive. Unlike other genus bees and queens of their own species, the stinger of worker western honey bees is barbed. A bee does not necessarily die soon after stinging, contrary to common belief; this myth is based on the fact that a bee will typically die after stinging a person or other animal. The stinger and venom sac are engineered to pull free of the body as they lodge, with musculature and a ganglion allowing them to continue transmitting venom until they are detached.

4 Trap-jaw Ant

Odontomachus ants, also known as trap-jaw ants, have a pair of wide, straight mandibles that can open 180 degrees. When sensory hairs on the inside of the mandibles are touched, the jaws are held in place by an internal mechanism and may snap shut on prey or objects. The ant's common name comes from its strong and fast mandibles. The ant's mandibles kill or maim the prey, causing it to be returned to the nest.

3 Warrior Wasp

Warrior wasps are noted for their aggressive behavior, including wing-beating and scratching their mandibles on the interior of their nests to make a "drumming" noise. Warrior wasps are also known as "armadillo wasps" because their nests, which are founded on tree trunks, resemble the backs of armadillos.

2 Tarantula Hawk Wasp

A tarantula hawk (Pompilidae) is a spider wasp that feeds on tarantulas. Tarantula hawks can be seen in a variety of Pepsis and Hemipepsis species. They are one of the largest parasitoid wasps, paralyzing their prey with their sting before dragging it to a brood nest as live food; a single egg is laid on the prey, which hatches into a larva that consumes the still-living prey.

Initially, only the Bullet Ant is on category 4 until Schmidt later added the tarantula hawk on the same tier. 

1 Bullet Ant

The bullet ant, Paraponera clavata, is a genus of ant that is noted for its excruciating sting. It can be found in tropical lowland rainforests from Nicaragua to Honduras' far east coast and Paraguay.

At 4.0+ on Schmidt's sting pain meter, the bullet ant's sting is currently the most painful. The discomfort feels like "walking over burning charcoal with three inches of nails stuck in your heel," according to Justin O. Schmidt.

Also Read: Scientist Claims That Wasps Aren't Just Pointless Creatures

For the most recent updates from the animal kingdom, don't forget to follow Nature World News!