(intense music)
- Well, here we are,
I'm sitting in a chair
with two weird cones on my legs
and no shoes.
You guys know what we're getting into today.
People often ask, Coyote,
where did the origin of your bite and sting climb begin?
Truth be told,
right here at this very harvester ant mound.
Ah, there's one on my neck.
Now, the harvester ant specifically,
has one of the most potent venoms
in the entire insect kingdom.
These little creatures inspired me
to climb up Justin's Schmidt's insect sting pain index.
I climbed index in my own way
but it began with this insect.
You may also be noticing
these weird contraptions on my legs.
Those are called ant blockers
and will help us keep the ants contained
to my legs and my feet.
The last time we did this,
they covered my body and I got stings in all sorts of places
that you wouldn't necessarily want to show on camera.
Now, when it comes to ants,
what we ultimately learned in our first episode,
is that they do bite and they do sting.
All the pain comes from the venom that is in that sting.
You guys know what's gonna happen right?
I'm gonna remove my feet off of this little stool
and I'm gonna try to withstand
60 seconds worth of bites and stings,
to show you guys exactly
why you want to avoid harvester ants
if you ever come across them
in the wild or even right in your own backyard.
So, if you guys are ready,
it is time to revisit the origin of stings
by standing in a mound of harvester ants.
I don't wanna step on anybody going in here.
Okay, now when it comes to aggravating ants,
I won't have to do much,
all I need to do is stand around the opening,
and the second one of them stings,
they release a sting pheromone
which tells the rest of them it's time to attack.
Now, we're gonna start the timer
from the second I start to get stung.
Right now,
the ants are just beginning to investigate
the fact that I am standing above their home,
and this entire colony spreads out in this entire area
where you see no plants actually growing.
The mound, the catacomb beneath the surface, is massive.
You can see the ants are starting to investigate me.
No stings yet,
they're just like, okay.
Ow, okay, there's one sting right there,
on the inside of my foot.
Now, ahh,
another sting on the back of the foot there.
Yep, okay.
So once that sting pheromone
begins to tell the ants that an invader is here,
more stings will come.
And you can see at this point,
there are more and more ants beginning to surround my feet.
(yelling)
There's one getting right between my toes right now.
Now, I haven't been moving my feet around very much,
just keeping them in one spot.
If an animal were to stumble upon a nest or,
(yelling)
there's one right between my pinky toe
and my next to my pink toe.
Man, that is a very sensitive spot.
So, they will tell each other,
hey we've got something out here
that's not going away.
Usually once an animal like a skunk or a coyote
gets stung on its nose once or twice,
they're like,
okay this is not a situation for me to mess with,
but in this instance,
I just keep enduring.
(yelling)
Geez, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
It's getting worse and worse
as they begin to swarm more and more so.
But you can see they're not all over the tops of my feet,
they're actually going under my feet strangely enough.
Wow, you guys just are making an encampment under my feet.
Look at this.
When I move my feet,
boom, ants everywhere.
Now, if my feet were horned lizards,
which are notorious for coming in
and feasting on these little insects,
this is exactly what would happen.
The ants could swarm out and try to take out that reptile.
But fortunately for the horned lizard,
their skin is so thick and rugged,
the ants are not capable of stinging through it,
so the horn lizard will just sit there,
like you see with my feet,
and lap up ant after ant after ant.
This is getting rather unbearable at this point.
And the stings don't come in as much of a wave
as the fire ants do,
and that's the big difference
between the fire ants and the harvest ants.
The fire ants are just like a tidal wave of stings.
The harvester ants are a bit more calculated,
they're exploring my feet,
they're finding the soft spots,
and then they're moving in to bite and inflict that sting.
(yelling) Oh man.
It is so uncomfortable to have them in between my toes.
Aw buddies, come on, you can make it a little bit longer.
The first time I did this,
it was such a shock to my body and my system,
running around, ants all of my body.
At this point,
I've been in the mound for several minutes
taking sting after sting after sting.
And my body,
while it's uncomfortable,
definitely not as uncomfortable
as it was the first time around.
I wish I had the skin of a horned lizard at the moment.
(yelling)
I yield, I yield, I yield,
out of the harvester ants.
Okay, now that I have endured a second go
with the harvester ants,
we're gonna go visit my good friend and inspiration,
Entomologist, Justin Schmidt,
the godfather of the insect sting pain index,
and get his reaction to today's ultimate chaos.
Several weeks ago
when I placed my arm
inside of a box of angry yellow jackets,
I said to myself, this is ridiculous,
I'm not getting stung by anything else.
Yet here we are two week later
and I just put my feet into a nest of harvester ants,
which are species you oftentimes see
right here in your own backyard.
Now, what's your experience been thus far
with harvester ants?
- They hurt.
- Yeah.
- And they're kinda sneaky
because often they'll get on your feet
and you don't know it.
It's just when they get underneath,
typically, I wear sandals,
when they get between the sandal and my foot,
then you're in trouble.
And they don't hurt like a yellow jacket or honeybees,
like wham,
you feel it right away,
these kinda sneak up on you.
But then they also this, what I call,
an unaesthetic pain.
It's not anything you can put your fingers on,
but you don't like it.
- Yeah, that's a great,
you're like what's happening to me right now?
- And it can kinda creep up,
like it'll get the lymph nodes,
I've had them sting my feet
and you have a lymph node up in your groin area,
and that starts swelling up
and that feels really bad.
You don't like that.
Again, it's not a sharp pain, it's not a piercing pain,
but you don't like that.
And the interesting thing about these ants
is they use them in puberty rights in California
back in the 1800's before the Indians were all moved out.
And they used them
and they would eat eagle feathers
with 100 or 200 ants on them.
- Like, what, dipping eagle feathers into ants,
and then eating that?
- Yeah.
And they would get stung in their throat and their stomach
and the good thing is they don't tend to swell
but then the kids would go into this sort of hallucination,
like the great spirit would come down
and guide them through their life.
Don't eat ants.
Something like that.
- I have to note
that on that whole hallucination element,
like I can imagine them going into your body
and you getting stung would be a whole lot worse
than on your feet,
but for a solid 45 minutes after taking the stings,
and I guess I kind of went through this last time,
'cause I've done harvester ants on my hands
and experienced mild swelling,
same thing with my feet,
but man, I felt like I was under the influence
of alcohol or a narcotic,
for a solid 45 minutes after I had taken all the stings.
I was almost delirious at one point
and not so much in the pain,
but just like my body being super out of it.
So, that makes a lot of sense.
- Yeah, the Native Americans obviously felt the same way.
They used the same kinda ants,
pogonomyrmex californicus,
which we have maricopa.
Maricop's in Arizona, California,
but they're basically the same thing.
And they obviously have the same effect
because these poor kids
would go out in the fall this time of year
and they'd get all these ants that they were eating,
and then they'd go out
until the great spirit gave them a guidance for life,
and then they were allowed to come back in
and join the manhood.
- Well, when it comes to the great spirit
giving me guidance in life,
I don't know if it's guiding me
in the direction of taking no more stings,
but I will say at this point,
I'm no longer experiencing pain,
so it makes it a lot better than the yellow jacket box.
And the good thing about harvester ants
is that unlike fire ants,
the stings don't swell up into unsightly white pustules.
So, when it comes to the harvester ant experience,
far easier to maintain than fire ants.
Justin, thank you so much
for taking all this time to visit with us today.
The inspiration that you've brought to myself
and everybody else out there
who loves insects and arachnids, is staggering.
We could not do this without you.
And if you guys have not checked out Justin's book,
I highly recommend it,
it is a fascinating read,
but do not follow the insect sting pain index
like you've seen me doing,
you don't want all of that pain
that comes with the bites and stings.
So thank you guys for watching,
Justin, thank you for continuing
to be a Yoda in my quest
to find out what's the next most painful sting.
I'm Coyote Peterson.
- I'm Justin Schmidt.
- Be brave.
- And be wild.
- We'll see ya on the next advventure.