Original subtitles

I'm Coyote Petersen.

Now you've seen me stung by harvester ants, fire ants,

and scorpions, but today, I'm moving a rung up on the insect

sting pain index, and I'm going to be stung by the cow killer.

I have a feeling that this one is going to hurt.

Oh, boy.

There's no question about it, the wild west

is rough and rugged.

And whether you're talking about the rocky terrain laced

with spine covered plants or its animals, most of which

are armed with fangs and stingers,

Arizona's Sonoran desert is an adventure lover's playground.

Sure, we all have our fears of being bitten by a rattlesnake

when venturing off trail.

Or in my case, having a giant desert centipede

run up my pant leg.

But in actuality, the good news is

that each and every one of these creatures

does its best to avoid human interaction.

However, sometimes you have an accidental run in.

And when you do, a bite or a sting

can be incredibly painful.

Yeah, he got me.

He bit me.

You sure?

Yeah, he definitely bit me.

When it comes to my line of work,

the goal is to have an interaction

so that I can show you the effects of these encounters.

This way we can all learn why it's

important to be in tune with our surroundings,

and why it's always best to admire

animals from a safe distance.

Velvet ant. Velvet ant.

You got one?

Yeah, yeah, it's right there on this ant log.

I can't get my pack off. Yes.

Hold on. No, he's underneath the log.

I just started to tip it.

I saw he ran back.

Hold on a second.

I saw him.

Did you see it?

He ducked back under again.

There it is.

There it is.

Get him.

Don't lose him.

Yes. Yes.

Look at that.

Whoa.

Oh, you almost got into the crevice of that log.

Wow.

That is a good sized one too.

But we got our velvet ant.

There it is.

OK.

Cool, well, tomorrow morning I'm going to get stung

by that little ornery bugger.

Cool.

The velvet ant, which is actually a species of ground

wasp and not an ant at all claims a famous nickname,

the cow killer.

Ranked on the insect sting pain index as being the fourth most

painful sting in the insect kingdom,

rumor has it that the pain is so intense it can kill a cow.

You may be looking at this thinking to yourself, Coyote,

are you going to get stung?

Yeah, I am.

I'm going to get stung by this today.

Now the insect sting pain index says that the intense pain will

last for about 30 minutes, and the reason that I'm doing it

is to work my way up to the bullet ant.

You want to see me stung by the bullet ant, kind of feel

like I have to get stung by everything

else leading up to that.

I am not looking forward to 30 minutes of pain that's

going to come from this insect.

I know, right?

Here we go again.

Coyote is about to enter the strike zone,

but this one's a little different.

When it comes to alligator bites,

crab pinches, or blood sucking leeches, I'm fine with that.

When it comes to stingers and venom,

that's where even I get nervous.

Now, the females do not have wings.

The males do have wings.

But what's interesting is that the males do not have stingers.

Guess who does have a stinger?

That's right, the females, and that's what we have here today.

Now one of the most impressive things about this insect

is the size of its stinger.

In fact, it's about as long as the entire length

of the abdomen.

What I want to do now is use these little entomology

forceps to pick the velvet ant up and show you

guys just how big that stinger is.

You ready for this?

Are they delicate?

They are not.

The velvet ant actually has a very, very durable

exoskeleton, one of the toughest exoskeletons

in the insect kingdom.

So me picking her up with the forceps

is not going to cause her any sort of pain or discomfort.

Oh. Getting away.

Getting away. I got it.

I got it. Got it?

Got it. Got it.

Awesome.

Now they can be found in the grass,

so if you're out there walking around barefoot,

and you step on one of these, you're not going to squish it.

What's going to happen is it's going to spin around

and then it's going to tuck its abdomen under

and, boom, you're going to get nailed with that giant stinger.

Well, I think at this juncture, it is time for me

to actually take a sting.

Are you guys getting nervous?

I'll tell you what, I sure was.

Now they say that this thing is painful enough to kill a cow.

However, there are no reported cases of cows,

or humans for that matter, ever dying from a velvet ant sting.

This makes me feel a bit better, but you never

know how your body will react to venom,

so we always have an epinephrine pen on location

just in case I have an allergic reaction to the sting.

All right, Mark's signaling me that it is time.

Here we go.

I'm about to be stung by the velvet ant.

Here we go.

All right, Coyote, well, it's about that time.

How are we going to pull this off.

I see we have, camera wise, we have a GoPro, small camera

right next to me.

Oh, hey, there's Chance.

Chance over there.

What's the game plan for the sting here?

What's the idea?

Well, this is going to go down one of two ways.

What I'm going to try first is to actually take

this little glass, flip it upside down,

get the ant to this end, and then

place it down on top of my arm.

This will isolate the ant on my skin,

and I'm hoping that as it tries to get away,

it's just going to sting me.

Now if that doesn't work, I also have my pair

of entomology forceps, and I'm actually

going to pick up, hold the ant, place it on my arm,

and let it sting me.

One way or another, I am definitely going

to be stung by the velvet ant.

Here we go.

OK.

Now the first thing I'm going to do

is get the ant up into that part of the glass,

then I'm going to spin this over onto my forearm,

and with any luck, the ant is going to sting me.

Here we go. Ready?

Let's do it.

Here comes number four.

I'm Coyote Peterson, and I'm about to enter the sting

zone with the velvet ant.

1.

2.

Here we go, 3.

Oh, boy.

Oh, my heart's racing right now.

Oh, boy, I can see its abdomen kind of pumping.

My heart is going now.

Any second it could happen.

Any second it could sting me.

Oh, boy.

Ow, ow, ow.

It's biting at my skin.

It's biting at the edge of the container trying to get out.

Oh.

Oh, and that stinger is going to be

like a little hypodermic needle going into my skin.

This is intense.

The glass is actually starting to get

a little foggy from the heat of my skin, so at this point,

I think we're going to move to plan

B, which is holding the velvet ant

with the entomology forceps.

I don't think it's going to sting me at this point.

It's been in there for about two minutes, and so far, no sting.

It's just trying to get out, so I'm

going to flip my arm upside down and get

the ant back under control. OK, here we go.

Ready?

1, 2, 3.

OK.

How do you feel?

Extremely nervous, and my heart is racing.

I actually think I do have to take a second just

to get my heart rate to calm back down.

OK, cutting GoPro.

OK.

All right, the only way to actually move forward with this

is for me to hold the ant with the entomology forceps up

against my skin and let it sting me.

This is going to do it, isn't it?

Yeah, hold on. I need a second.

My heart's like-- You all right?

Getting dizzy. Yeah.

Getting dizzy.

In the world of entomology, when it

comes to milking the venom of insects and arachnids,

holding them with forceps is a guaranteed way

to induce a sting, so I think we all know

what's going to happen next.

This is crazy.

Guys, this is crazy.

My nerves are going this much for the velvet ant,

I can't imagine what the tarantula hawk and the bullet

ant are going to be like.

OK.

I can't believe you're about to do this.

That stinger is enormous.

Yeah. Yeah.

OK, you can do this. You can do this.

OK.

Is that stinger going to go

all the way under your skin?

Yeah, it's going to go right into my skin.

Oh, boy.

All right, here we go. - Here you go.

Ready?

All right, let's do this again one more time for good measure.

I'm Coyote Peterson, and I'm about to enter the sting

zone with the cow killer.

Are you ready?

Are you ready?

No, I'm never ready.

1, 2, 3.

You good? Yep.

Get your shot.

Place it right down on my arm.

Here we go.

Look at my arm shaking.

And go.

Ow.

OK, let me get back here.

You all right?

What are you feeling?

Oh.

Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

OK.

Give me a second.

Oh my gosh.

You all right?

Oh, yeah.

What are you feeling?

What does it feel like?

Give me a second.

Give me a second.

Oh oh oh.

Oh.

Oh my gosh, guys.

This is super bad.

Move this out of the way.

Hold on.

I got to try and control my heart rate.

Try to get a tight shot of it right there

where the stinger went in.

There's blood.

OK, try and get a shot, so I can get up

and like walk around for a second.

Right there.

Right there is where it stung you.

Where it stung me. I could feel it.

It was like-- you could feel it go all the way under the skin.

All the way in.

I could feel it insert into my arm.

You gonna be all right?

OK.

Now they say that the sting of the velvet ant

will last for about 30 minutes, and I

can tell you guys right now, this is the worst

sting I've ever taken.

There's no question about it.

It's worse than a harvester ant.

It's worse than a fire ant.

It feels like I'm getting stung over and over again.

You can see the welt starting to form on my arm.

Oh, man, yeah.

There's a welt big time.

Describe the pain.

Is it like a pulsating pain, stabbing pain?

The pain, it's radiating.

It is radiating.

It feels like if you get a Charley horse and your muscle

and it like seizes up and then it's like doof, doof.

Oh, that is powerful.

I can see why they call them cow killers.

Oh, that is some intense pain right there.

How long has it been?

About seven minutes.

Seven minutes?

They say the pain from this lasts for about 30.

I have about 23 minutes to go, guys.

23 minutes to go.

Now aside from working my way up to the bullet ant,

the reason I was willing to take a sting from this insect

was so that we could all see the effects of the venom.

25 minutes has gone by.

My arm is still on fire, and what's crazy

is that look at all the red blotching

that's formed around the sting.

There's the stinger insertion point right there.

And it is swollen, and it is very tender,

and you could see how red the entire radius is of the sting.

I'm sweating.

My goal was to do the best I could to describe

the pain I was feeling.

And it still hurts.

It definitely still hurts, but not

as bad as the initial impact of the stinger.

But what's interesting is that all around the sting

is tingling like these little tiny pincushion needles going

tst tst tst, and as you can see, there's

all these little red dots forming

and I'm assuming that is where the venom

is spreading into my arm.

Oh, wow, well, I would say that this was definitely

one very intense sting.

The cow killer has earned its reputation

as being one of the most powerful

stings in the insect kingdom.

And while it may be ranked as a 4

on the insect sting pain index, for me, at this point,

it's definitely number 1.

I'm Coyote Petersen.

Be brave, stay wild.

We'll see you on the next adventure.

We have caught a bullet ant, and we

have it in the glass capsule.

And right now, Mark is filming the final macro shots,

and I am two, yes, two minutes away from being stung

by the insect that supposedly has the most painful

sting in the insect kingdom.

I think I'm going to be fine, but, oh, guys, the heart rate

is going today.

This is it.

Hidden within the darkness of the Costa Rican rainforest,

a legend exists beneath the ancient canopy.

Indigenous people refer to it as Bala, which means bullet.

It is rumored that just a single sting from this animal

is so excruciating that it feels as if one

has been shot with a gun.

Today is bullet ant challenge day.

I'm actually pretty excited about this.

As long as we can find a bullet ant,

I'm going to get stung by one.

So guys, keep your eyes peeled.

These little ants can be anywhere.

I guess they aren't really little,

they're probably about this big, so let's

head down here into the rainforest

and see if we can find one.

All right.

Believe it or not,

bullet ants are incredibly common on the Caribbean side

of Costa Rica, and setting the stage for a sting

was only going to take a single one.

Seems simple.

However, finding them can be quite the challenge,

especially when dealing with some

of the most difficult filming conditions we have ever faced.

Oh, boy, that is the disorienting

thing about the rainforest.

Everything looks the same no matter what direction you turn.

Mario?

Coyote!

Yeah, all right. OK.

Found him.

I got nervous there for a second.

Let's keep going.

For days, we scoured the jungle, traversed rushing rivers,

fought torrential rainfall, and sloshed through what seemed

like an endless maze of mud.

The goal was to find a creature no longer

than a needle in a haystack that literally

spanned thousands of acres.

It seemed as if all was lost, then

finally, after several days of searching, the sun came out

and fate took its course.

I just saw one.

There's one coming out right there.

Coming out.

He's definitely right there.

See if I can him on the stick.

Here we go. Here we go.

You got him?

Oh, it's going right towards my hand.

That is a bullet ant right there.

Hold on.

I'm just going to put it in the container.

Mark, watch out.

I think there's--

Did I get one on me?

I think so, man.

I think they're swarming.

We have definitely found a bullet ant nest.

There's no question about it.

I was in there trying to get a single ant

and they started swarming out.

OK, this just went from slightly dangerous to extremely

dangerous because there was one crawled up on my hand,

and I got startled, and I flicked it off of me.

I need to go back and get the container.

We need to get in there.

All right, come on, get on the stick.

My hand's shaking.

I got one.

Nope, it came off.

I got one.

I got one.

Back up, back up, back up.

It's going right towards my hand.

Oh, boy.

It's attacking the tip of the stick.

I'm going to put it down right here on the dirt.

Yeah.

All right, I'm going to get it in this cup.

Got it.

It walked right in.

Holy cow.

Oh my gosh.

Hold on.

Wait, check your legs.

Check your legs.

See anything, Mario?

No, you're good.

Oh my gosh.

If I was that nervous just to catch the ant,

I can't imagine how nervous I'm going to be

to actually be stung by it.

This is wild.

All right, let's take the ant down here into a flatter area,

get the scene under control.

It's time to go through with the bullet ant challenge.

Whoa.

GoPro is rolling.

OK.

I am literally at the summit of the insect sting pain index,

so what I'm going to do now is remove the glass.

Ant is live, OK?

It is out and active.

I am going to now pick it up with the forceps.

Got it.

Oh, there we go.

That right there is a perfect hold, right on the thorax.

And, wow, look at that.

The stinger is already flying.

Does that give you enough space there,

Mark, to be able to see the stinger as it goes into my arm?

Yes, sir.

We've got clear visibility on the abdomen.

Here we go.

I'm going to move the little wooden base out of the way.

Glass capsule is right here in frame.

Forearm on the table.

I'm Coyote Petersen, and I'm about to take

on the bullet ant challenge.

Are you ready?

Let's do it.

1, 2, oh my gosh, this is it, 3.

Oh, it's stuck in my arm.

It's stuck in my arm.

The stinger is stuck in my arm.

Look at that.

Oh. OK, it's off.

It's off.

It's off.

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh.

You all right?

Oh my God, it is really bad.

Oh my gosh.

I think it has the tarantula hawk topped.

You all right, man? - Yep.

Oh.

Did you see that?

The stinger was stuck into my forearm right into the vein.

There is the sting insertion point right there.

Oh my gosh.

It is like--

Oh.

It's hot.

Oh, I can feel the venom already right in my forearm.

It is.

It's number one.

Oh my gosh.

It's burning more.

It's getting worse. Hold on.

Hold on. Hold on.

Oh.

How my whole arm is getting really tight.

Ha. Ha.

Oh my gosh.

Mark, put your arm out here.

Just tell them.

Feel my forearm.

Wow.

It is like rock hard.

I think it's spasming up the muscle.

Now the toxin that comes out of the sting of a bullet ant

is a poneratoxin, which can cause you to hallucinate.

So I don't know how much venom actually went into my arm.

All I know is that the stinger was

in my forearm for a considerable amount of time.

Oh my gosh.

Oh.

Oh.

Dude, I think my--

I think my--

I think my neck is having a muscle spasm too.

My whole muscle structure is like pounded right now.

What is that?

OK, that's not good.

Let's keep an eye on that.

My neck is like stiffening up.

My entire arm feels like it's having a spasm right now.

OK.

Is it getting better or worse?

No, it's worse.

It's coming in waves of pain now.

Oh my gosh.

It is-- hold on.

I'm super lightheaded, like super lightheaded.

You need some water?

You're looking flushed.

Your face is like turning red.

You're getting like puffy under your eyes.

I'm sweating bullets right now.

Bullets.

Bullets of sweat for the bullet ant.

OK, I'm going to try and stay composed.

We're going to have to cut the scene pretty quickly.

I'm in a lot of pain right now.

OK, at the moment, I'm experiencing

hot, radiating waves of pain.

It feels as if someone has stabbed me with a hot poker,

and I can actually feel the venom.

It's throbbing.

It's very similar to the bite of the Gila monster.

When I was bitten by the Gila monster, it was intense pain,

and then it would reside, and then it

would return with a vengeance.

This is-- at this point, the tarantula hawk

was already done hurting.

This is getting worse.

This is getting worse.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to take this for 24 hours.

It pumped me full of venom.

This is going to be bad.

It's one thing to get tagged, and you know, to be, ah,

I got stung.

It's another thing to be like--

I'm just hoping you got that shot, Mark,

where it was literally latched on and stinging me.

I'm sweating bullets right now.

It is humid, but my body is on fire.

It's been about 20 minutes since the sting, and look at my arm.

It feels like it is on fire about up to my shoulder.

Extremely painful right in that region.

It's red.

It is swollen, but I feel composed enough to give

you guys a proper outro.

Now they say that this pain is going to last for 24 hours,

and my goodness, if it does, I'm in for one wild day.

But I think it goes without question that the bullet ant's

sting is the most painful that I have faced thus far

on the insect sting pain index.

I'm Coyote Petersen.

Be brave, stay wild.

We'll see you on the next adventure.