{"id":295,"date":"2026-03-26T12:28:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T12:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/justin-schmidt-the-man-stung-by-more-than-150-insect-species-for-science\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T12:28:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T12:28:01","slug":"justin-schmidt-the-man-stung-by-more-than-150-insect-species-for-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/justin-schmidt-the-man-stung-by-more-than-150-insect-species-for-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Schmidt: The Man Stung by More Than 150 Insect Species for Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Advancing science demands immense determination, rigor, and, in the case of a famous American entomologist, a remarkably strong tolerance for pain.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A Vocation Born Very Early<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>As Justin Schmidt wrote in the <em>Guardian<\/em> in 2018, his vocation began when he was seven years old. Fascinated by the reaction produced by a bee\u2019s sting on his teacher\u2019s hand, the budding scientist deliberately exposed himself to nearly all of the <strong>stinging insects<\/strong> species recorded in the Appalachian region over the ensuing years.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">Images show, for the first time, a red fox attacking a cub<\/span><\/section>\n<p>These experiences essentially taught him that each sting was unique. And it was this very point that ultimately steered him toward entomology. He passed away in 2023 at the age of 75, leaving a substantial scientific legacy.<\/p>\n<p>During his long career, he notably created <em>\u201cSchmidt\u2019s Pain Index\u201d<\/em>, describing and ranking on a scale of 1 to 4 the stings inflicted by Hymenoptera, a large order of insects that includes ants, bees, and wasps.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774528080_492_Justin-Schmidt-The-Man-Stung-by-More-Than-150-Insect.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1004233\"  ><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Schmidt&#8217;s Pain Index<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>For instance, the man placed stings from the Halictidae family at the bottom of the scale, described as <em>\u201cmild and fleeting, akin to a tiny ember reddening a hair on your arm\u201d<\/em>, at the lower end of the scale. The second rung includes that of the yellow jacket, <em>\u201cburning and throbbing\u201d<\/em>, and the third that of the red ant, <em>\u201cbold and relentless,\u201d<\/em> and <em>\u201c<em>comparable to using a drill to extract an ingrown nail<\/em>\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">Ten days in space isolation: how Artemis II tests human limits far more than technology<\/span><\/section>\n<p>At the top of the scale, one finds the famous bullet ant (<em>Paraponera clavata<\/em>). According to Schmidt, the pain was comparable to <em>\u201cwalking on hot coals with a rusted 7-centimeter nail driven into the heel\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Only the stings of <em>Pepsis<\/em> wasps, known for attacking tarantulas, and <em>Synoeca<\/em>, came close in intensity. By comparison, the pain lasts no more than two minutes, whereas <em>P. clavata<\/em> can cause pain for up to 24 hours.<\/p>\n<p>If the American entomologist estimated having been stung about a thousand times by more than 150 different insect species, a Brazilian biologist, for his part, walked on more than 40,000 venomous snakes to push science forward.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">The great white shark is still in the Mediterranean, but the latest scientific data are frankly alarming<\/span><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[248,244,246,245,250,249,247],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-insect","tag-justin","tag-man","tag-schmidt","tag-science","tag-species","tag-stung","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}