- 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!
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)