- I'm Coyote Peterson. Now you've seen me
stung by harvester ants, fire ants, and scorpions. But today, I'm moving a rung up on the insect sting pain index, and I'm going to be
stung by the cow killer. I have a feeling that
this one is going to hurt. Oh boy. (scream) (intense percussion music) There's no question about it. The wild west is
rough and rugged. And whether you're talking
about the rocky terrain, laced with spine covered
plants, or its animals, most of which are armed
with fangs and stingers, Arizona's Sonoran Desert is an
adventure lover's playground. Sure we all have our
fears of being bitten by a rattlesnake when
venturing off trail. Or in my case, having a
giant desert centipede run on my pant leg. But in actuality, the
good news is that each and every one of these creatures does its best to avoid
human interaction. However, sometimes you
have an accidental run-in. And when you do,
a bite or a sting can be incredibly painful. (gasping) Yeah, he got me. He bit me. - [Mark] You sure? - [Coyote] Yeah, he
definitely bit me. When it comes to
my line of work, the goal is to have
an interaction, so that I can show you the
effects of these encounters. This way we can all
learn why it's important to be in tune with
our surroundings, and why it's always
best to admire animals from a safe distance. Velvet ant, velvet ant! (mumbling) I can pick off, yes, hold on, he's underneath the
log, I just started to tip and so I ran
back, hold on a second. - [Mark] I saw him. - [Coyote] Did you see it? - [Mark] He ducked out
and ducked back in. - [Coyote] There
it is, there it is. - [Mark] Get him,
get him to go in it. - Aagh! Yes, yes! Look at that. Whoo! Oh, you almost got me with
the crevice of that log. Wow, that is a
good sized one too. Ah, but we got our velvet ant. There it is. Okay, cool, well,
tomorrow morning, I'm gonna get stung. By that little ornery bugger. Cool. The velvet ant, which
is actually a species
of ground wasp, and not an ant at all,
claims a famous nickname. The cow killer. Ranked on the insect
sting pain index as being the fourth
most painful sting in the insect
kingdom, rumor has it that the pain is so
intense it can kill a cow. You may be looking at
this, thinking to yourself "Coyote, are you
gonna get stung?" Yeah, I am, I'm gonna
get stung by this today. Now the insect sting
pain index says that the intense pain will
last for about 30 minutes. And the reason that
I'm doing it is to work my way up
to the bullet ant. You wanna see me stung
by the bullet ant? Kind of feel like I have to
get stung by everything else leading up to that. I am not looking forward
to 30 minutes of pain that's gonna come
from this insect. I know, right? Here we go again. Coyote is about to
enter the strike zone. But this one's a
little different. When it comes to
alligator bites, crab pinches, or
blood sucking leeches, I'm fine with that. When it comes to
stingers and venom, that's where even I get nervous. Now, the females
do not have wings. The males do have wings,
but what's interesting is that the males do
not have stingers. Guess who does have a stinger? That's right, the females. And that's what we
have here today. Now one of the most
impressive things about this insect is
the size of its stinger. In fact, it's about
as long as the entire length of the abdomen. What I want to do now
is use these little entomology forceps to
pick the velvet ant up, and show you guys just
how big that stinger is. You ready for this? - [Mark] Are they delicate? - Um, they are not. The velvet ant
actually has a very, very durable exoskeleton,
one of the toughest exoskeletons in
the insect kingdom. So me picking her
up with the forceps is not going to cause her
any sort of pain or danger. Oh! - [Mark] Oh, getting
away, getting away. - [Coyote] I got it, I got it. - [Mark] You got it? - [Coyote] Got it. - [Mark] Got it, awesome. - Now they can be
found in the grass, so if you're out there
walking around barefoot, and you step on one of these,
you're not gonna squish it. What's gonna happen is
it's gonna spin around, and then it's gonna
tuck its abdomen under and boom, you're gonna get
nailed with that giant stinger. Well, I think at this juncture, it is time for me to
actually take a sting. Are you guys getting nervous? I'll tell you what, I sure was. Now they say that this
sting is painful enough to kill a cow. However, there are no
reported cases of cows, or humans for that
matter, ever dying from a velvet ant sting. This makes me feel a bit better, but you never know how your
body will react to venom, so we always have an
Epidendrum pen on location, just in case I have an
allergic reaction to the sting. All right, Mark's signaling me that it is time, here we go. I am about to be stung
by the velvet ant. Hoo, here we go. Hoo. - [Mark] All right Coyote,
well, it's about that time. - Yeah. - [Mark] How are we
gonna pull this off? I see we have a, you
know, camera wise we have a GoPro, a small
camera right next to me, oh hey, there's Chance. Chance over there. What's the gameplan
for the sting in here? What's the idea? - Well, this is gonna
go down one of two ways. What I'm gonna try
first is to actually take this little glass,
flip it upside down, get the ant to this end,
and then place it down on top of my arm. This will isolate
the ant on my skin, and I'm hoping that as
it tries to get away, it's just going to sting me. Now if that doesn't
work, I also have my pair of entomology forceps,
and I'm actually going to pick, hold the
ant, place it on my arm, and let it sting me. One way or another, I am
definitely going to be stung by the velvet ant. Haaah, here we go. Okay, now the first
thing I'm gonna do is get the ant up into
that part of the glass, and then I'm going
to spin this over onto my forearm
and with any luck, the ant is going to sting me. Here we go, ready? - [Mark] Let's do it,
here comes number four. - I'm Coyote Peterson,
and I'm about to enter the sting zone
with the velvet ant. One, two, here we go, three. Oh boy. Oh, my heart's racing right now. Aah boy, I can see its
abdomen kind of pumping. My heart is going now. - [Mark] Any second
it could happen. - Yeah, any second
it could sting me. Oh boy, ooh ooh ooh, ow ow ow, ow, it's biting at my skin, it's biting at the edge of the
container trying to get out. Ooh. Oh, and that stinger is gonna be like a little hypodermic
needle going into my skin. This is intense. The glass is actually
starting to get a little foggy from the heat of my
skin, so at this point I think we are going
to move to plan B, which is holding the velvet ant with the entomology forceps. I don't think it's going
to sting me at this point. It's been in there
for about two minutes, and so far no sting. It's just trying to get out. So I'm gonna flip
my arm upside down, and get the ant
back under control. Okay, here we go, ready? - [Mark] Okay. - One, two, three. Okay, whoo. Ahhhh. - [Mark] How do you feel? - Aahh, extremely nervous,
and my heart is racing. I actually think I do
have to take a second just to get my heart
rate to calm back down. Okay, cut and GoPro. Okay. All right, the only
way to actually move forward with this
is for me to hold the ant with the entomology forceps. Up against my skin,
and let it sting me. - [Mark] This seems, this
gonna do it, isn't it? - Yeah, hold on, I need
a second, heart's like, - [Mark] You all right? - Ooh, getting dizzy,
yeah, getting dizzy. In the world of
entomology, when it comes to milking the venom of
insects and arachnids, holding them with forceps
is a guaranteed way to induce a sting. So I think we all know
what's going to happen next. This is crazy,
guys, this is crazy. My nerves are going this
much for the velvet ant, I can't imagine what
the tarantula hawk and the bullet ant
are gonna be like. Okay. - [Mark] I can't believe
you're about to do this. That stinger is enormous. - Yeah, yeah, okay, you can
do this, you can do this. - [Mark] So is that stinger gonna go all the
way under you skin? - Yeah, it's gonna go
right into my skin. - [Mark] Okay, I'm ready. Oh boy. All right, here we go. - Here we go, ready? All right, let's do this again one more time for good measure. I'm Coyote Peterson,
and I'm about to enter the sting zone with
the cow killer. Are you ready? - [Mark] Are you ready? - No, I'm never ready. One, two, three. You good? - [Mark] Yeah. - Get your shot,
I'm gonna place it right down on my arm. Here we go. With my arm shaking. And go. Ahh! (pained gasps) Okay, I'm gonna get back here. - [Mark] You all right? What are you feeling? - Gaah! Oh, wow. Oh wow, okay. (heavy breathing) Give me a second. Oh my gosh. - [Mark] You all right? - Oh yeah. - [Mark] What are you feeling,
what does it feel like? - Give me a sec, give me a sec. (rapid panting) Oh my gosh guys,
this is super bad. Move this out of the way. Gah! Gah! Oh my gosh, I gotta try
to control my heart rate. Try to get a tight
shot of it right there with the stinger, we need to
see to see if there's blood. Okay, try to get a shot,
because if I can get it we'll like walk
around for a second. Right there. - [Mark] Right there
is where it stung you? - Right where it stung me. I could feel it, it was like, you could feel it go all
the way under the skin. All the way in. I can feel it
insert into my arm. (grunting) - [Mark] You gonna be all right? - Okay. Now they say that the
sting of the velvet ant, will last for about 30 minutes. And I can tell you
guys right now, this is the worst
sting I've ever taken. There's no question about it. It is worse than
a harvester ant, it is worse than a fire ant. It feels like I'm getting
stung over and over again. You can see the welts
starting to form on my arm. - [Mark] Oh man, yeah,
those are welts, big time. Describe the pain, is it
like a pulsating pain, a stabbing pain? - If it pain, it's
radiating, it is radiating. It feels like, you know
if you get a charlie horse in your muscle, and
it like seizes up, and it's like doomph, doomph. Ah, that is powerful. Ah, I can see why they
call them cow killers. (chuckle) That is some intense
pain right there. How long has it been? - [Mark] About seven minutes. - About seven minutes? Well they say the pain from
this lasts for about 30. I have about 23
minutes to go, guys. 23 minutes to go. Aah! Now aside from working my
way up to the bullet ant, the reason I was
willing to take a sting from this insect
was so that we could all see the effects
of the venom. 25 minutes has gone by. My arm is still on fire. And what's crazy is that,
look at all the red blotching that's formed around the sting. There is the stinger
insertion point right there, and it is swollen,
and it is very tender, and you can see how red
the entire radius is, of the sting. I'm sweating. My goal was to do
the best I could to describe the
pain I was feeling. And it still hurts, it
definitely still hurts, but not as bad as the initial
impact of the stinger. But what's interesting is
that all around the sting is tingling, like these little
tiny pin cushion needles going tsk tsk tsk. And as you can see there's
all these little red dots forming, and I'm assuming
that is where the venom is spreading into my arm. Oh wow, well I would say
that this was definitely one very intense sting. The cow killer has
earned its reputation as being one of the
most powerful stings in the insect kingdom Gaaggh! Arrrgghh! Ergh! And while it may
be ranked as a four on the insect sting pain index, for me, at this point,
it's definitely number one. I'd say I'm one step closer to being stung by
the bullet ant, but first, I'm gonna
have to go up against the tarantula hawk. I have a feeling that that
one is going to be bad. I'm Coyote Peterson. Be brave, stay wild, we'll
see you on the next adventure. Whoo, let's get
out of the desert. Velvet ants are nomadic
ground dwellers, that feed primarily on nectar. So there is absolutely no reason you should ever fear them. If you live or are hiking
in velvet ant territory, you'll want to avoid
a possible sting. Keep your boots on your feet,
and you will be just fine. If you thought that
sting was intense, make sure to check
out the compilation of all my worst bites,
pinches, and stings, as we work our way up to
the bullet ant challenge. And don't forget, subscribe, so you can join me and the crew on this season of
Breaking Trail. (animal howl)
If anyone's curious, these lil' beasties are a type of solitary wasp (not ants, despite the name) and their sting is indeed f'ing awful. Was accidentally stung by a female panda ant, another one of the several thousand velvet ant species (looks so cute though!), and was like plucking out nose hairs with white hot tweezers again and again. Yikes. What's crazy is that they're still nowhere near the top of the league for Hymenopteran (ants, bees n' wasp) stings. The Schmidt Sting Pain Index, attempts to catalogue pain levels, and goes a lil' like this:
Like the world's worst wine list. I'd put the panda ant at around 2.8ish. Dread to even comprehend what getting bitten by a tarantula hawk or something would be like... !
We had these all around my house growing up, I never got stung by one but I do know they're nearly impossible to kill.
You have to damn near jump on them to actually kill one.
"You alright?"
"bitch im dying"
I have been stung by both a velvet and AND a tarantula hawk wasp.
The thing they don't tell you about the Schmidt Pain Index is that it's logarithmic.
The velvet ant sting makes you panic, makes you want to run around and shake and vomit. 3.5
The tarantula hawk wasp makes you lose your humanity for 5 minutes and just become a screaming unthinking animal. 4.0. You cannot engage in any sort of human-like or even mammalian thought for at least 3 minutes. Seriously. This pain is mindless, and you barely remember it except for the fact that it was the worst 5 minute interval of time you've ever experienced. Like a pain coma.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vJVyPUuvsc and here's a less dramatic version lol
cant wait for the tarantula hawk, would be the first one captured on video afaik
People can bitch about Coyote all they want, but I absolutely love his videos. Its targeted at the same demographic Steve was targeted at, but guess what? You're not in that demographic anymore.
I stepped on one of these with boots before and it didn't even flinch, I had to stomp on it to kill it and when I stomped on it, it sounded like I had just stomped on hard candy because of how hard it's exoskeleton is.
I wish Steve Irwin were alive