Original subtitles

I'm Coyote Peterson, welcome to "The Desert Millipede Versus

The Desert Centipede."

COYOTE PETERSON Venturing

into the nighttime desert is not for the faint of heart,

as this cactus giant ecosystem is laced with a plethora

of nocturnal predators.

Whether it be scorpions, spiders--

That right there is a black widow.

Solpugids or vinegaroons,

these arachnids are certain to be on the prowl

as they used the cover of darkness

to silently hunt for their prey.

Look at that, does that thing not look like an alien?

All arachnids come equipped with eight legs,

and most are also armed with a set of fangs,

or a venom injecting stinger.

That is the most venomous species

of scorpion in the United States,

and he's on my hand, all right?

This makes me a little bit nervous.

I want to see if I can get him to just sit still.

However, if eight legs, fangs,

and stingers aren't enough to scare you, Arizona Sonoran

Desert is also home to a sub phylum of creatures

with even more legs.

The myriapods which consists of centipedes and millipedes.

At the end of the day, both of these animals

do their best to avoid humans.

However, today, we are going to capture one of each,

so we can get them in front of the cameras

for an up close comparison.

First, let's talk about the desert millipede.

Now, millipede means 1,000 feet.

And each one of these little body segments

has two pairs of legs on it.

Now, there's no way that I'm going

to get underneath this creature and count its legs,

but I can tell you from it crawling across my arm

that there are a ton of them tickling me right now.

It feels like a bunch of little tiny pieces of velcro

grabbing onto your arm hairs.

Despite the name,

there isn't actually a species in millipede on the planet

that has 1,000 feet.

On average, they have around 400, with the record being 750,

more than any other animal in the world.

These myriapods have very poor eyesight,

they have very simple eyes up front.

So they're really using these antenna to help them navigate

through the environment.

And you'll see as he dances up in the air like that,

he's basically looking for what his next move is going to be.

If he can't feel anything with those antenna,

he's kind of like, whoa, whoa, I've run out of road here.

And until he bumps into something that he can walk on,

he's just going to stay put until he can

get those front legs planted.

Now, the millipede doesn't have many predators.

And that's because these little myriapods

are actually poisonous.

They do have glands that run along the side of their body

and if they are really, really threatened

they will secrete a nasty orange fluid,

and it absolutely stinks.

I actually got it all over my hands the other night.

Now if you get this poison on your skin all you need to do

is wash your hands with soap and water and you'll be just fine.

Now, I'm completely comfortable with millipedes

they don't bite.

If it doesn't bite, it can crawl all over me all that it wants.

But the centipede is a whole different ball game,

and we're going to get that guy out in a second

and get a close look at that venomous little desert dweller.

The desert millipede is

virtually harmless to humans.

And if you encounter one in the wild,

just admire it from a safe distance.

OK, now, we're on to the part of the episode

that I have been dreading, there is

no good way to do this you just have

to plop them out and go for it.

All right here we go ready.

Oh boy, now he's kind of like, oh I'm on the ground

and I'm on the move.

Desert centipedes can inflict a very painful and venomous bite,

so I stress never attempt what I am doing.

OK, there we go.

Now that I have his head under control

and more importantly, those fangs I feel a lot better

about this situation.

Oh, look at how creepy that little desert creature is.

Now what's really interesting is that the centipede

means 100 feet, each species of centipede varies.

There's no way that this one has 100 feet

but as they continue to grow and their body segments

elongate, they grow more legs.

Now, one major difference between the centipede

and the millipede is that the centipede

has a very flattened body.

This allows them to fit into crevices between rocks

and allows them to glide very quickly

over the surface of the desert.

Now these are voracious predators,

they are out here right now walking the washes

and searching through the rocks for other animals.

They will eat bugs, they will eat scorpions,

they eat lizards, and the ones that

grow to the size of the giant desert centipede,

they will even take rodents.

But the bite from a centipede of even this size

is going to put you into some incredible pain.

That's why I want to be as careful as possible

while handling this myriapod.

One really interesting feature about all centipedes

is that-- you see the back end here, this rump?

You have these two modified legs on the back end here,

which have little hooks in them.

Now, this back end is pretty much a false head.

It's the same color as the head is.

And these two little modified feet on the back end

here have hooks on them.

So let's say you're a predator and you come in

and you're like, all right I'm going to get him,

I'm going to bite his head right off,

these little modified feet go up in there pom

and you get pricked with those little spikes,

throws you off guard, the centipede spins around

and that's when you get a bite from those venomous fangs.

This is not a creature that is very easy to consume.

Centipede venom is not

considered deadly to humans.

However, the pain has been said to keep

a full grown man on the ground and in pain for several hours.

Moral of the story, steer clear of centipedes.

I hope everybody enjoyed this comparison,

the desert centipede versus the desert millipede.

Both species are native to the Sonoran Desert

and I suggest avoiding both, because the centipede

is venomous and the millipede is poisonous.

I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave, stay wild.

We'll see you on the next adventure.

COYOTE PETERSON The sting

from that insect was electric in nature

and it was probably the worst five minutes

of my life at that point.

Yeah, that's exactly why I call it electrifying and say,

you want to be Macho, I'm tough I can overdo this,

no you can't.

So I tell people, lay down and scream.

COYOTE PETERSON People

often ask me, Coyote, how many times have you been stung?

And my answer, when I look back to the beginning,

from harvester ants, to fire ants,

to honeybees, to the cow killer tarantula hawk,

and bullet ants, many times.

In fact, well over 250 times

since my climb up the insect sting pain index began.

However, while many people have coined me the King of sting,

this incredible journey actually began with a well choreographed

map, created by a man who I consider to not only be

the true king but the actual godfather of everything

that is insect stings, Justin Schmidt.

A world renowned entomologist and author,

he has documented the sting pain of over 80 insect species.

And today, for the first time ever, I'm

getting the chance to sit down and talk with him face to face

about his climb up the index, and how

our collective experiences have helped bring a new fascination

to the world of bugs.

So this is the guy who made the index.

This is it, he inspired that climb all the way up

through the velvet ant, the tarantula hawk,

and ultimately the bullet ants.

Oh, I don't know if I'm more nervous now

than I ever have been to meet somebody in my life,

you guys are ready? I'm ready.

Let's do this.

All right, now here's what's going to happen,

I'm going to knock on that door, and either there's

going to be Justin Schmidt inside

and we're going to be talking bugs,

or there's going to be a bunch of stinging insects

that come out, it's going to be a big hoax.

Right?

I don't know.

I'm excited, nervous, I don't know.

Oh, there he is.

Great.

The godfather himself.

I've seen you before.

Oh, and I have seen you, read the book.

I know absolutely everything.

Here, let's move in, let the camera crew come in.

This a new there's a whole team here.

We've got an entire team today filming a sort of documentary.

The more, the merrier.

This is-- hold on a second.

I got to just take a 360 here and absorb.

This is where it all comes from, wow.

This is pretty cool.

Today's going to be really interesting,

I'm going to be sitting down with Justin,

to talk about our journey of the insect sting pain index.

As you guys know, all of my inspiration

has come from this man right here,

we also have another crew with us today that's

filming a separate documentary.

Say hi, guys. - Hi.

Hello.

So we have all sorts of cameras going today.

I don't know where this is going to lead to, but it's going

to be exciting and there's-- - It's going to be fun.

- going to be so much knowledge coming out of this.

I just can't wait to sit down and pick your brain about what

has inspired you to get stung by things,

because I know where my inspiration came from,

but when you done.

What I'm saying is I want to know

what inspired you, because you know we have very different--

Right.

- attitudes, and very different means.

So I think the goals are the same.

Exactly.

And that's what's so beautiful.

We're trying to stimulate an interest in love of science

and biology and just life.

Yes. - It's cool.

And bugs.

People are always so afraid of bugs but they don't need

to be afraid of this pictures-- No, exactly.

- they're beautiful

and they're amazing.

You do such wonderful things for the environment and the more

that we can educate people about them--

Exactly.

- the better off the world is going to be.

Ready to start the conversation?

3, 2, 1, action.

All right guys well, this has been a long time coming

my chance to actually sit down with who I consider

the godfather of the insect sting pain index, the one

and only Justin Schmidt, and we are inside of his research

office/today. today What we're going to do now

is just have a back and forth conversation

about what this journey has been like for both of us.

I mean, I think it's fair to say that you've been stung

by more creatures than I have.

I've read your book, and it's incredible.

And I actually-- to be honest I read

the book partway through climbing

the insect sting pain index.

And I was turned on to the sting of the wild

after I was actually stung by harvester ants, which maybe is

a great place for us to start considering we're here

in the Sonoran Desert, which is the home of the one

and only harvest ran out, you've been on the harvest.

Exactly.

And in fact, just like what you said, the harvest is what

got the sting pain scale going in the first place,

that I'd been stung by honeybees, yellow jackets,

you know paper was.

Now, the normal things in your backyard.

Yeah, and garden variety stuff that you get bitten

by various beetles and things.

I went down to Georgia, which has the easternmost extension

of the harvest range.

I got stung by one, I went, whoa.

Didn't you see that coming, right?

This is different.

You know, I thought I knew everything

there was about stinging insects you know,

just as this dumb little kid.

Yeah.

Said, hey, wait a minute.

There's something different going on here.

And that's what got me doing the comparative,

is this unique to harvesting ants

or are there others that like that?

And it turns out while the answer is, now we

know much later, it's unique.

Well, and for me where it began you know without even

knowing about the insect sting pain index,

we were here filming in Arizona, and we were getting

ready to film in my mom's backyard,

who lives right here in Tucson.

And she said, when you go out there watch out for the harvest

and that's because I got stung by one the other day and man

did give me a wall.

I was like--

I was like an ant gave you a really painful sting.

So we went out we looked at this you know mound in the gravel,

it's flat and you know you got the hole and all the ants

pouring out where we're like, well, let's find out how

painful that sting really is.

So we did a little research and we were like,

OK well, no one's ever died from being stung by her restraint,

but let's see what happens when I take a bunch of stings.

So you know, just kind of on a whim

I said, let's set up the cameras and I put both of my hands

down in and before I knew it just hundreds of ants

swarming my arms.

And I took around what was like 50 or 60 stings.

Yeah.

60 stings from the harvester

ants and it was bad.

You probably had the world record.

I don't know but it was--

Because most of us give up after one sting.

Yeah, well, what I tried to do was

last 60 seconds with my hands in the nest of harvester ants.

Wow.

And I did actually make it to 60 seconds.

And long story short, we ended up releasing this episode,

we didn't know how the audience would take it.

And all of a sudden everybody starts

talking about Justin Schmidt and the insects

sting pain and ants. - Cool.

And are you going to get stung by a bullet ant?

I said to myself, I don't want one from a bullet ant.

Yeah.

It sounds like a bullet ant,

this sounds like-- You don't know.

- a made up creature, right?

You don't want to know.

So I looked up your work.

And lo and behold, I find this picture of you

with an ant on your nose, an ant the size of your thumb.

And I'm thinking to myself, this has

got to be photoshopped, right?

So I dig a little deeper, and sure enough the legend is true,

the bullet ant is real.

And that's when I end up stumbling

upon your insect sting pain index, which was just

this beautiful chart of all these different bugs ranked

on a scale of 1 to 4, based on least amount of pain

to worst amount of pain.

Exactly.

Right?

And so what inspires you?

I mean, I think it's clear that we've established

that you've inspired me, and we'll get

into more of that in a second.

But what would ever say to you, let's go out

and just get stung by things for fun?

Well, I didn't really want to go out and get stung for fun.

I was this desperate graduate student

trying to get a thesis so I could

get out and get a real job, you know, stop being a student

eventually.

And I realized that, oh, we can measure toxicity,

how much killing power something else,

but we can't measure pain.

Ouch. That one hurts.

Ouch.

That one hurts.

That one over there is ouch, but I

can't put that into a computer program

mathematically and analyze what it means for the insect.

So I said, ah, we need a pain scale.

A computer can analyze one, two, three, and four.

Mhm.

It can't analyze "ouch."

So I decided that I had to make a pain scale.

The harvest ant, to cut to the chase, was a three.

Mhm.

Honeybee is a two.

And I kind of tell people that each number's

like 10 equivalents of the number before,

so like 10 honey bee stings would

equal one harvester ant sting.

Right.

10 harvester ant stings would equal 1 bullet ant sting.

So you got six bullet ants stings when you

plunged your hands into that--

Yeah.

- equivalent.

So that would be a four and a half, I guess,

if you wanted to extrapolate beyond four.

Yeah, it was extreme.

It certainly woke me up.

And I think what's interesting is that you create this index

so that everybody out there can understand

these insects a little bit better

and then certainly respect them on this scale of pain.

And for us, it's always been about, you know,

let me put myself in the guinea pig situation--

and we always encourage people never to try this,

which, you know, I know you always encourage as well.

Putting yourself into the test field is one thing,

but you never know how your body's going to react

to any of these venoms.

So as you started with the harvester ants

and then you started figuring out

some of these other creatures, were you

ever nervous to take a sting where you're like,

OK, what if this is the one that sends me

into anaphylactic shock?

What kind of went through your head

as you were getting to that?

Yeah, I never worried about the medical aspects.

I actually didn't even worry about the pain

because when you're in the thick of the battle,

if you're focused on something like pain,

you can't do the battle right.

Right.

And there's this wasp nest up in the tree,

and I may never see this wasp nest again.

I got to get this thing because that's a data point,

and a data point's important.

There aren't very many of them in my field.

I got 60.

That took 30 years to get 60 or so.

Wow.

Or 80 I guess it is now.

But the other thing that I kind of relied on

is, well, it's only 1% of people that have an allergic reaction,

and only 1% of those that have really dire reactions

where you're likely to die.

You just get skin reactions and that sort of thing.

And I say, well, I'm walking across the street.

I could get run over by the bus or the truck.

That's probably as risky as it is out there.

That's what I always say.

Or actually, the other things I worry about strangely

are mosquitoes.

The mosquitoes are a really good thing

to mention, because one thing that a lot of people

kind of don't understand is there's a big difference

between a bite and a sting.

Now, a mosquito is a bite, and a lot of what we have experienced

are stings.

Now, we know I've been bitten by lots of other things

like snapping turtles and alligators and whatnot,

but the sting is something that's

very different because its venom being injected into your body.

And I know for me, specifically, probably

one of the scariest instances I ever had,

which is something that's lower down on the sting index

as a two, being the honeybee, is I

was stung 30-plus times in the face

by honeybees by wearing a bee beard.

My face swelled up like a giant potato.

And I've never been stung by honeybees before.

So I was nervous that my body would have

some sort of negative reaction.

And when people ask me, well, what was the most painful

sting you've ever taken?

Of course it is the bullet ant, but when--

exactly like you said, when you've got multiple stings

in one region, especially on your face,

that was a pretty painful day.

You can't see, and your nose is dripping,

and your lips are swollen up so you can't eat.

COYOTE PETERSON Yep.

Yeah, yeah, honeybees are, actually, I

consider the most dangerous of the stinging insects

because there's so many of them.

Right.

I mean, you get a bullet ant, there's maybe 2,000 or 3,000

of them in the biggest colony, but you only get a couple

of dozen that come out.

And they can't fly.

That's a big difference if they can fly.

You can run away from them.

So you can run away pretty quickly and get

away from the bullet ants.

But you can't run away from bees nearly as easily.

Right.

And, you know, if you have 50,000, 60,000

of these things and they're out to get you,

boy, that's a really scary thing.

So in the line of flying stinging insects,

or some that crawl along the ground,

let's jump straight into the tarantula hawk, another one

of the large, flying, stinging creatures of our planet

that can be found here in the Sonoran Desert.

For me, the tarantula hawk almost put a line in the sand--

no pun intended-- when it came to completing the sting index.

Because I will never forget what it was like,

first of all, how intimidating that creature

is to get that thing in the entomology forceps.

And it looks like an alien.

And it's strong.

It is strong.

The wings are going and you see that quarter-inch stinger

coming in and out of that abdomen,

and that moment where I'm like, all right,

I'm going to have to place this on my forearm

and take this sting.

And when I finally worked up the courage to do that,

the sting from that insect was electric in nature.

I've been shocked before by accidentally--

like taking a zap from like--

Oh, yeah, we all have.

- an electrical cord.

This was that times 10, and it put me on the ground.

My arm seized up from muscle contraction.

And it was probably the worst five minutes

of my life at that point.

Yeah, that's exactly why I call it electrifying and say,

imagine you're walking along in Arizona,

and there's a windstorm, and the power line above

and telephone snaps the wire and it hits you.

Of course, that hasn't happened to me.

COYOTE PETERSON Right.

But, you know, that's

what you imagine it feels like.

It's just absolutely electrifying.

I call it debilitating because you want to be macho,

oh, I'm tough.

I can overdo this.

No, you can't.

So I tell people, lay down and scream!

That's what I did.

And Mark would be like, uh, you know,

his famous line, Coyote, are you OK, are you OK?

And it was very hard to--

COYOTE PETERSON - try

to compose myself to be like, all right,

describe what's happening to your body right now.

Because your mind goes into this state that's just--

it's blank emptiness, and all you can focus on

is the fact that there's radiating

pain coming out of your arm.

And that's why you scream because now you're

focusing on something else.

Yeah.

In addition to the pain, you're focusing on--

but taking a little bit of a juice--

That's a pretty good impression.

That sounds pretty good.

- a little bit of the juice off of the pain,

so maybe you can lower it down to a three

for as long as you can yell.

Right.

And I can yell for a pretty long time when

I'm stung by a tarantula hawk.

Well, for me, the tarantula hawk, what was interesting as

compared to the velvet ant is that it was five minutes

of intense pain and then just like a light switch,

it turned off.

And I was like--

you could actually breathe again.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's important to know

that something like a tarantula hawk

is not out there trying to sting people.

They are actually very peaceful creatures.

They are looking for nectar, and unless you're a tarantula,

you really don't have anything to fear

unless you're going to go up and try

to catch one of these insects.

So I'd say your odds of being stung by a tarantula hawk

are slim to none unless you're really antagonizing it.

I don't know if anybody has ever

been stung by one except entomologists

trying to catch them. - Right.

They get them in the net-- this is

a powerful thing because you know it's hard

to get it out of the net. - Oh, yeah.

And you're trying to get it out,

and, well, sooner or later, you're going to make a mistake,

and that long stinger isn't very forgiving.

Right.

Oh, and they're incredibly agile too,

the way that they can just swing their body

and tuck their abdomen under.

And before you know it, they've grasped

on with those little hooked legs and, boom, you get a sting.

Well, they're grabbing tarantulas.

If you can grab a tarantula, you can certainly

deal with an entomologist.

Absolutely.

Entomologists are much simpler than a tarantula.

Mhm.

So what do you think, Justin?

Do you think-- do you feel like it's about

the same experience you had?

Well, I think the beauty of what we're both doing

is we're trying to make education, and knowledge,

and love for insects and life in general as our ultimate goals,

that we want to inspire people through entertainment.

And facts and entertainment don't have to be in conflict.

Right.

They go together.

And I think we're both trying to do this the same way.

Yeah, I absolutely agree.

And it's a matter of admiring these animals

from a respectful distance in all instances.

And a lot of people ask me, why are you stung by these things?

Why do you want to go through this pain?

It's so that we can get an education about these animals

so that we learn about the science,

and so that people understand that these creatures are not

out there to simply get you.

We put ourselves into these positions

so that we can explain to the audience what it's

like to go through this pain.

And when you see how bad It is and you hear how bad it is,

hopefully you will just say, OK, yep,

that's a bullet ant over there.

I'm going to zoom in with my camera

and get a photo from here.

And you'll learn about their biology

so that you don't get stung, if you know they're biology.

Like, I can pick up a tarantula hawk by letting it crawl on me

because I'm not threatening it.

If I come in and pick it up like this, then I'll get stung.

Well, that's knowledge of the biology.

Right.

Well, on behalf of myself, my team, and everybody out there

watching, we have to say thank you for creating the insect

sting pain index because without the groundwork you laid,

we would not have the roadmap to follow that ultimately led

to us creating all of this wonderful edutainment

that now everybody knows more about these insects,

how to approach them in the wild,

safely respect them from a distance, and then, of course,

just have a love for these creatures that

are oftentimes misunderstood.

So, Justin, thank you so much for inviting us

into your incredible office today, for sharing

with us all this knowledge.

Of course, guys, make sure to check out Justin's

book, "The Sting of the Wild."

It is absolutely fascinating.

The bullet ant chapter is my favorite.

I'm Coyote Peterson.

Be brave.

Stay wild.

We'll see on the next location.

If you are looking

for an incredibly fascinating book,

I highly recommend "The Sting of the Wild,"

which chronicles the best of Justin's

painful insect encounters.

In fact, I consider my autographed copy

to be one of the most treasured manuscripts I own.

Over the course of my career, I have

met some captivating individuals, yet

when it comes to someone who can swap

sting stories and the painful journey

that it took to chronicle them, no one compares

to the godfather of sting himself,

the one and only Justin Schmidt.