The Actual Most Painful Sting and How Did They Figure That Out?

Who among us hasn’t had this experience? You are eating a lovely outdoor meal or working peacefully in the garden when unexpected guests arrive. Dressed in menacing yellow and black, they buzz annoyingly around you, coming between you and your juicy steak or prized roses. You try to gently shoo them away, but they just grow more and more aggravated until, suddenly, you feel it: that sharp, searing pain, flashing up your hand, as if you’ve just been stabbed with red-hot poker. If you’re lucky, your finger will swell up and you will have to endure that throbbing agony for an hour or two. If, however, you happen to be among the unlucky 0.5-7% of the general population that is allergic to insect stings, you can look forward to the delights of anaphylactic shock: a sudden drop in blood pressure, itchy hives, and difficulty breathing which, in severe cases, can lead to death without immediate medical intervention. Whether we like it or not, venomous creatures like bees, wasps, scorpions, spiders, snakes, and jellyfish are a part of everyday life for nearly every human on earth, with hundreds of thousands of species worldwide being capable of delivering some kind of painful or toxic bite or sting. Thankfully, however, as is often the case in nature, most of these organisms will not attack unless directly provoked. And, if you happen to live in a part of the world where the worst stings you have to face are those of bees, paper wasps, and yellowjackets, consider yourself very, very lucky, for mother nature holds far greater horrors in her arsenal, from ants with bites so painful they are used as tests of manhood, to wasps whose stings have been likened to being thrown into a live volcano, and fish with venom so excruciating it can literally stop your heart. But which bite or sting is the absolute worst? Which organism on this planet is, as the English rock band The Police might have put it, the “King of Pain”? Well, let’s find out as we dive into the agonizing world of the worst bites and stings in nature. Author: Gilles Messier Host/Editor: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila 0:00 Intro 6:00 Schmidt Theory and His Wine Lover-esk Index 17:20 The Starr Sting Pain Scale 20:00 Nathaniel "Coyote" Peterson's BSI and Looking Beyond Insects 25:30 The Ultimate Stings- The Platypus and Stonefish Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Actual Most Painful Sting and How Did They Figure That Out? is an episode from The BrainFood Show by Cloud10.

This episode is 33:51 long.

This episode was published on Apr 10, 2026.

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