Nutjob (Voluntarily) Gets Stung By Second Most Painful Wasp in the World
If bee stings make you queasy, you may want to look away.
Adventurer Coyote Peterson (yeah, we don't think that's his real name, either) decided to let a tarantula hawk bite him. The tarantula hawk is actually a spider wasp that has the second most painful sting in the insect kingdom behind only the bullet ant on the Schmidt pain index (yeah, poor Schmidt, figuring out how to rank stings. That sounds about as fun as being caught in a beehive).
The tarantula hawk is the largest species of wasp in the U.S. and its sting is so bad that a human will be paralyzed for five minutes afterward (one positive: the tarantula wasp is not too interested in humans).
This video clocks in at more than 15 minutes, but it's riveting from start to finish, as Peterson explains what the tarantula hawk is, goes into his history of doing things like putting his arm in an alligator's mouth and preps for the sting. Clearly, this guy is
Sure enough, the sting lives up to the hype -- his arm does indeed become paralyzed and he writhes in pain on the ground scratching the sand, yet he still manages to refer to himself in the third person like he's the Jimmy from Seinfeld.
Eventually, the pain becomes tolerable and the video ends with Peterson boldly declaring he's ready for the bullet ant even though his arm remains swollen and itches long after the stunt takes place.
There's no question that Peterson can take pain, so we'd like to invite him to try that most painful experience unique to the human male species: going to the mall with his girlfriend on an NFL Sunday. That can take weeks to recover from and usually ends with the male no longer having a girlfriend.