You’ve read something about the bite of a bullet this week. The media wrote about the ‘ worst pain in the world ‘. An Australian presenter contributed a special ritual to a tribe in the Amazon region. Young tribal members must stop their hands in gloves full of bullet mites, only then they are a “real man”. The presenter suffered terrible pain and eventually had to be admitted to hospital.the bullet bite is number one in this list!

Justin Schmidt, an entomologist at the University of Arizona, goes one step further. He has also bitten by the bullet, but also by 150 other insects. He is therefore a true expert, and the ideal man to determine which insect bite is the most painful. He has prepared the “Schmidt Sting Pain Index”. The scale ranges from 0, almost no pain, to 4, horrible pain!

10. Sweat Bee (from North America)

Pain scale: 1.0
Duration Pain: short
Description Pain: Light, volatile, like a small spark of a single hair on your arm.

9. Fire ants

Pain scale: 1.2
Duration Pain: 2-5 minutes
Description Pain: Sudden sharp pain that lasts for a few minutes.

8. Bullhorn acacia ant

Photo: Ryan Somma / Flickr

Pain scale: 1.8
Duration Pain: 4-6 minutes
Description Pain: A rare, penetrating type of pain. As if someone were shooting a staple in your cheek.

7. North American Hornet

Photo: PiccoloNamek / Wikicommons

Pain scale: 2.0
Duration Pain: 3-4 minutes
Description Pain: Full, powerful, light cracking. Similar to your hand in a revolving door.

6. Yellow Yacket (weed species)

Pain scale: 2.0
Duration Pain: 4-10 minutes
Description Pain: Incredibly hot. Imagine being a cigar on your tongue.

5. Honeybee

Photo: Richard Bartz, Munich Macro Freak & Beemaster Hubert Seibring / Wikicommons

Pain scale: 2.0
Duration Pain: 4-10 minutes
Description Pain: Like a matchbox that shoots and ends up on your skin.

4. Red Mower

Photo: Steve Jurvetson / Wikicommons

Pain scale: 3.0
Duration Pain: 1-8 hours
Description Pain: Fors and grim. Someone uses a drill to remove your ingrown toenail.

3. Paper wasp

Pain scale: 3.0
Duration Pain: 5-15 minutes
Description Pain: Corrosive and burning. With a bitter aftertaste. Like spilling acid onto a cutting wound.

2. Tarantula Hawk

Picture: Rankin1958 / Wikicommons

Pain scale: 4.0
Duration Pain: 3 minutes
Description Pain: Blind, furious, shocking, electric. As if a hair dryer has fallen in your hot tub.

Photo: Davehood / Wikicommons

1. Bullet mitt

Photo: Hans Hillewaert / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / Flickr

Pain scale: 4.0+
Duration Pain: 12-24 hours
Description Pain: Pure and intense pain. Compare it with walking over burning charcoal with an 8 centimeter long rusty nail in your heel.

Top 10 Painful Insect Bites