(dramatic music)
- I'm Mark Vins and it's time to get burned by a fireworm.
Here goes nothin'.
Ah!
Gee!
Mmm!
That is really bad.
Oh man, it is getting intense.
Ah!
(waves crashing)
(upbeat music)
As steam rises off a frigid ocean
and light reveals a jagged maze of shoreline,
we begin our search for a fire below the surface.
The smoldering abyss created
by this uncharacteristically cold floor today
is a fitting backdrop for the home of a mysterious creature
that possesses one of the fiercest stings beyond the tide.
Hundreds of thousands of species of worms
can be found all over our planet.
And while some of them are well known
for their bizarre abilities,
the fireworm stands alone.
This bizarre porcupine-like worm that feast on coral
and small crustaceans,
is covered in thousands of sharp spines
that can ignite burning pain
with just the slightest of touch.
This armor fends off predators so well
almost nothing will eat them.
And from the reefs of the Caribbean,
to the rock pools of the Mediterranean,
and sometimes depths of up to 300 meters,
the fireworm is spreading rapidly into new environments
and so too is the legend of its fiery sting.
In this video, I will put myself to the ultimate test
to learn about this marine oddity
by enduring its painful sting twice.
I will suffer through this experience in hopes
to answer the ongoing scientific question,
"Is the sting of the bearded fireworm actually venomous
"or is it simply just a flesh wound?"
Do not attempt what you're about to see.
This is going to be extremely painful.
There it is.
All right.
It's time to go get stung.
Here
we
go.
That
is a very
good size fireworm.
And oh boy, does it look intimidating.
And yes, welcome to another sting experiment
here on the Brave Wilderness Channel.
This time we're going to attempt to solve a mystery,
a bit of a scientific question as to whether or not
the fireworm is indeed venomous.
All right, there we go.
You can see the worm so much better.
This is indeed a true worm.
You can actually see the segments lining the entire top
and it's a lot more closely related to a sandworm
and a bloodworm than some of the other marine organisms
out there on the reef.
But unlike most worms,
it has very unique defense mechanisms.
There are thousands and thousands of these small,
tiny hair-like spines lining the worm's body.
In fact, they release so easily,
I can actually see a lot of these spines
floating in the water above it.
This is where it gets its name, the fireworm,
because those spines are so sharp and easily projected,
anything that even brushes up against the worm's body
gets inflicted by a searing pain.
I have heard from many reputable sources
that this is worse than a lionfish sting.
Ah!
It's worse than a man-of-war sting,
and all the other stings
at this marine environment behind me.
You'll notice firstly that it's very colorful.
That aposematic coloration
indicates that it is extremely toxic.
Not only potentially venomous,
but it's also poisonous.
Being poisonous and venomous are two very different things.
Poison has to be absorbed or ingested into the body
where venom is actually injected by means of a tooth,
a stinger, or in this case, a spine.
But beyond the toxins that we know
are contained within this worm,
let's talk a little bit about the symptoms
from the sting of a fireworm.
And this is from a scientific journal written in 2017:
Acute, intense stinging pain.
Itchiness, numbness and swelling
that can last up to several weeks.
Symptomatic reactions such as nausea,
cardiac and respiratory problems can occur.
Dang, that would be bad.
And it's so interesting to me
that even the scientific community,
the scientists that study these creatures,
haven't been able to figure out definitively
if they're venomous or not.
So with that being said,
it's now time to conduct our sting experiment.
And here's how it's going to go down.
While stinging myself twice,
once on each arm, might sound crazy,
it will be absolutely necessary
to conduct this sting experiment
where I will treat one arm
as if the fireworm sting is venomous
and the other as if it were not.
In theory, if venom is present, the two separate treatments
should result in different outcomes
in both pain and visible damage.
Okay, I'm about to take
one of the most painful stings of all the marine ecosystem.
Oh, look at it flare up.
Wow!
Look at that defense mechanism.
Oh my goodness.
See all those spines flare out, ready to eject?
And it's not going to take much,
just the slightest brush up against the fireworm
and it's gonna be instantaneous.
Oh man, I am nervous.
I am feeling the nerves go now.
Oh boy. All right.
Let's put my arm in the sting tank.
Okay.
I'm Mark Vins and it's time to get burned by a fireworm.
Here goes nothin'. (soft dramatic music)
Oh, that looks bad.
Here we go.
On three. Ready?
One, two,
three.
Ah!
Oh yeah. He got me.
He got me.
Oh!
Yeah, I can definitely...
I can feel it. Oh.
Yeah, it's almost like little electrical pulses
going through the skin.
You can even see.
Oh wow, right away there are all kinds of spines up
and down my skin.
But man, it is starting to intensify.
It's like little shock pulses like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,
going through my skin.
All right, this is starting to hurt.
Oh man.
Like...
Oh!
Yeah.
That super burns.
That burns.
Holy cow.
All right, I'm gonna do the second one, guys,
because I don't know how much longer
this is gonna be tolerable.
Oh man.
Oh yeah.
That...
Ah!
Oh!
Okay, guys, we gotta do the second sting fast.
Whew!
All right, here we go.
Sting number two from the fireworm.
Here we go.
(soft dramatic music)
Right arm in the sting tank.
Time for my second dose of fireworm spikes.
Here we go. You guys ready?
Oh!
Yep. I can see 'em.
Oh yeah. All through there.
Same spot.
This arm. Oh yeah, you can start to see my arm's drying out.
See all the quills?
See all the spines, all the redness?
This one's about to look just the same.
All right.
Now.
(Mark breathing deeply)
I've taken the stings.
Let's get the remedies out.
(Mark breathing heavily)
Oh, don't do that. Don't.
Oh man, that hurt worse.
Yeah, do not blow on 'em.
Oh!
Searing like a hot needle.
I tell you what, guys,
I can tell right away this isn't just irritant.
There's something else going on for sure.
Woo! Oh!
Oh man, you can really see the inflammation
starting over here.
Ah!
Oh mighty.
(Mark breathing heavily)
First thing you want to do
if you are stung by a fireworm is nothing.
You do not want to rub the spines in deeper
with your other hand,
'cause you're only going to inflict more pain
onto your hand itself.
What we wanna do right now is wait for my arms to dry
and then we are going to use the adhesive technique
to remove as many of those spines as we possibly can.
Ah!
Yeah man, that is bad.
That is really bad.
Oh man, it is getting intense.
Ah!
Oh!
The adhesive technique we're going to do on both arms.
This is the same thing you're going to want to do
to the stings, if they're venomous or not.
I'm gonna try to rip out as many of those spines as I can.
Hopefully this causes not too much irritation
and gives me a little bit of relief.
Here we go.
Oh!
That is tender to the touch.
Oh, ready? Okay. I've got the adhesive pretty well on there.
One, two.
Oh!
Yeah.
Woo!
Okay, I got a lot of 'em actually here.
Man, that tape did a good job.
At this point, we're gonna and go in for side two.
Here we go.
Same thing.
One, two, three.
Ah!
Gee!
Mmm!
(Mark breathing heavily)
That really hurt.
The good news is I think I got 'em all.
Yep, you can see got the spines out again.
Now comes a second step,
and this is only for the venom treatment.
Like we said in the beginning,
one side we're treating as if it's venomous
and one side we're not.
So the right side now is totally done.
But the left side, we are gonna mark with a V.
You may have noticed the pain I'm experiencing
is coming in waves,
which is another indication that something chemically
and perhaps venomous is going on.
But to measure the visual reaction,
I will mark one arm with a V for venom treatment
and then draw boundaries on both sting sites
to see if the swelling expands
or contracts over the next 24 hours.
Let's go ahead and treat the left side
as if this was venomous.
First thing we wanna do is we wanna apply
some household white vinegar.
Vinegar has the ability to render any venom
that would be on the surface of my skin inert.
Oh man, it feels cold to the touch.
That actually feels good.
And we're gonna leave this vinegar on here
for another five to 10 minutes,
and then we're gonna go to step two of the venom treatment.
That is hot water.
Oh yeah.
Wow.
So far, even from the treatments alone,
every indication signs are pointing towards venom.
The heat affects the actual structure of the venom itself,
rendering it almost harmless
and a lot easier for your body to digest and take care of.
Ah, at least one of my arms is already feeling better.
Can't say it for the right arm,
that arm still hurts a lot.
Ah, you do not want to experience
the pain of a fireworm firsthand like this.
This is bad.
All right, well, there we have it.
Usually at this point in the video,
I would give you my thoughts
and we'd see you on the next adventure,
but we really wanna see how
this experiment plays out overnight.
So I'm gonna head back to camp
and I'll see you guys again in the a.m.
so we can compare both of these stings next to each other,
see if there's any difference.
I tried everything I could to put the pain out of my mind
but just laying there in my tent,
my arms ached with increasing waves of agony
as sweat poured out of my body all night long.
Morning couldn't come soon enough
because I knew the only thing
that would make the pain go away was time itself.
I can tell you this much, I am still in quite a bit of pain.
And even wearing this shirt hurts.
Any contact with the stings feels terrible.
And get this, it actually rained last night
so I got water in my tent on top of it all.
So while I am feeling a little bit better,
the sting damage is actually pretty significant.
The results visually speak for themselves.
The arm that we treated is almost healed at this point.
I mean, you have some localized redness here.
It's still hurts, it's not done,
but visually you can see that the swelling is down.
The actual inflammation is contracted to
within the site from yesterday,
where the arm on the right
has expanded beyond the site from yesterday
and the inflammation is serious.
It is very tender to the touch,
much more so than the arm on the left.
There is some other evidence that I wanna talk about
that is really important to
my ultimate decision of determining
the venomous nature of this animal.
First thing is the obvious feeling,
the sensation of the sting itself.
It was a delayed reaction.
When I first made contact with my skin in the tank
I almost didn't feel like anything was even happening.
But within a minute,
I felt that first sign of intense burning
and it only got worse.
It built and built and built until, on both sting sites,
I felt like there was almost like an electrical fire
underneath my skin.
But this arm,
the one we treated like it was a venomous sting,
I actually saw these sites move.
And we have a picture to show you.
So you could see there that it was well beyond this mark.
That is a very interesting indication
that there was something chemically happening
underneath the skin
and moved that sting site beyond that line
and then back again.
I would have to say
given all of the evidence of this sting test,
I am convinced that this is indeed a venomous creature
and yes, being stung or burned by a fireworm not only hurts
but is the result of envenomation.
I hope you enjoyed this experiment with fireworms,
but more than anything,
I hope you yourself never have to experience
the burn from this marine creature.
Because I can guarantee you, it packs a major wallop.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
It's time for us to release our fireworm
back off into the wild and head off for another adventure.
See you guys on the next one.
(bear growling)
(wolf howling) (birds chirping)