Most Painful Insect Bites and Stings
It's like being shot.
Pure, intense, brilliant pain - like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch rusty nail grinding into your heel.
It is indescribable pain, coming at you in waves of fury. It's like you're being engulfed in red-hot flames while being jabbed by dozens of spiky nails.
That's why they're called bullet ants - because their sting is like being shot by a shotgun.
Torture.
You are chained in the flow of an active volcano.
Explosive and long-lasting. You sound insane as you scream. It's like hot oil from deep frying spilling all over your hand.
Worse than any wasp sting, and I've been stung by many. I wanted to amputate my thumb.
The tarantula hawk is a spider wasp that preys on tarantulas. They belong to any of the many species in the genera Pepsis and Hemipepsis and are one of the largest of their kind. Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric.
A running hair dryer has been dropped into your bubble bath.
May or may not be voting because of the *shivers* cazadores in Fallout: New Vegas.
Caustic and burning, with a "distinctly bitter aftertaste." It's like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
Hot and smoky, almost irreverent.
Imagine W.C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
It's instantaneous and excruciating.
As if a rat trap snapped on your index fingernail.
This is considered the worst and most painful insect sting ever - worse than the bullet ant or Asian giant hornet. It's been described as feeling like your skin and flesh are being ripped apart.
It's listed here twice, and no wonder - it's the most painful insect sting known to man. They say it feels like burning, searing pain, like being submerged in lava. Incredibly painful.
This should be ranked on the sting pain index.
It's like a narrow, hot nail being driven into your body.
If this is the same critter as the White-Faced or Bald-Faced Hornet, it's one of the angriest, nastiest, and most persistent little hellhounds on the planet. Piss them off, and they'll chase you all the way to Hades.
It's basically the Bald-Faced Hornet, and its sting is like getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
The Newcomers
They have powerful saliva that causes extreme pain, more than most things on this list. They're also responsible for Chagas disease, which kills 12,000 people every year.
A caterpillar has six true legs and ten false legs, so it counts as an insect as well. It's the worst pain you could get from an animal, though.
I remember once when I was a little kid, on a summer day, I fell into a fire ant hill. The ants were biting my leg, and it was super painful. I remember it felt like someone was pinching me very hard or deliberately hurting me.
I stepped on a fire ant hill and didn't know it. It was super painful.
These flies are some of the most annoying, persistent, and painful flies around. Never mind a mosquito - these things really cut through the skin and feed on blood like vampires. I hope you don't get cursed.
I've been bitten by these flies. It feels like a flu shot. They literally rip through the skin and drink blood, but rarely do they cause sickness.
Imagine someone dropped a cigarette on you while you were biking.
This is a sting we're very familiar with. It's like a match covered in lye and sulfuric acid landed on your skin and burned it. But it's not as bad as some of the other insect stings out there.
Burning and corrosive, but it's bearable. It's like a flaming match head lands on your arm and is first quenched with lye and then sulfuric acid.
Today, while on vacation in Mexico, I was on the beach barefoot and stepped on a bee. It hurt badly, and I'm still sore where I got stung. I almost cried from the pain.
Like a ritual gone wrong. Satanic.
The gas lamp in the old church explodes in your face when you light it.
This is referring to the Ferocious Polybia Wasp, which doesn't come close to the pain of the Fierce Black Polybia Wasp.
Like a trick gone wrong, your butt is a target for a BB gun.
Bull's-eye!
It happens on the third day, as you reach for the light switch, and you're wondering:
When will you ever learn?
A ferocious pang, and it lasts 12 hours.
Flesh-eating bacteria dissolve your muscles, one by one.
Bold and unrelenting.
Somebody is using a power drill to remove your ingrown toenail.
It's like you've spent 8 hours using a drill to get rid of your ingrown toenail, and then it gets wedged in your toe.
Like a dinner guest who stays too long, the pain drones on.
A hot Dutch oven lands on your hand, and you can't get it off.
There are "gods," and they do throw their thunderbolts.
Poseidon/Neptune has rammed his trident into your chest.
I got stung by a wasp today while on vacation. It hurt so badly, and I'm still sore where I got stung. I was stung five times by the same wasp and had to get out of the area. I cried in pain.
Immediate, irrationally intense, and unrelenting. This is the closest you will come to seeing the blue of a flame from within the fire.
An odd, distressing pain.
Tiny blowtorches kiss your arms and legs.
Spicy, blistering.
A cotton swab dipped in habanero sauce has been pushed up your nose.
Instantaneous, like the surprise of being stabbed.
Is this what shrapnel feels like?