Justin O. Schmidt is a brave man. As an entomologist at Tucson’s Bee Research Center, he has taken it upon himself to get bitten and stung by every ant and bee in the world. In 1984, he published a paper ranking how painful each insect’s venom feels. He’s perfected the “Schmidt Sting Pain Index” over the years and added great descriptions for each bug.

He compares a Yellow Jacket’s sting to “W.C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.” That gets a 2 out of 4 on the index. At 3 we have a bite from the Red Harvester Ant, which feels like “somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.”

The highest rating (a 4+) goes to the Bullet Ant, whose bite is reminiscent of “fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.” At this point, let me remind you that Schmidt has authority on describing pain because he’s been bitten by all 78 species on this list – and endured a Bullet Ant bite four times! Bleh!

Anyway, here’s a quick graphic of the Schmidt’s index. I suggest that you avoid anything pictured here.

(Credit: Monster-Watch staff)