People,

I wanted to pass this unusual article on to all of you to consider when encountering a stinging insect in the field.

The New York Times, August 10, 2009

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2009/new-york...
Oh, Sting, Where Is Thy Death?
By Richard Conniff

Not long ago, I got stung by a yellow jacket, and after the usual ow-plus-obscenities moment, I found myself thinking about pain, happiness, and Justin O. Schmidt. He's an Arizona entomologist and co-author of the standard text in the insect sting field, "Insect Defenses: Adaptive Mechanisms and Strategies of Prey and Predators." But he's more widely celebrated as the creator of the "Justin O. Schmidt Sting Pain Index," a connoisseur's guide to just how bad the ouch is, on a scale of one ("a tiny spark") to four ("absolutely debilitating").

Among connoisseurs of insect stings, it's the equivalent of Robert Parker's wine ratings. Schmidt has been stung by about 150 different species on six continents and seems to have opinions about all of them. In faux-Parker mode, he once described a bald-faced hornet sting as "Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door." Other researchers tend to regard his work with fascination. But hardly anyone tries to replicate his results.

Continued at:  http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2009/new-york-times-08-10-2009.html

Ed Frank  

Doug Bidlack wrote (August 22, 2009)  Saddleback Caterpiller

Ed,

I enjoyed the article.  I remember hearing about this guy Schmidt while I was at Clemson.  I was told that cicada killers and cow killers (a large species of velvet ant which is actually a wasp) were really quite painful and I always wondered who this guy was.  My great appreciation for all sorts of wasps started while I was at Tennessee.  I studied host plant resistance and parasitoids in tobacco.  The main pests that I studied were tobacco budworm and corn earworm.  I was absolutely amazed at how few of these caterpillars ever became adults.  Early in the year more than 90% were taken out by an ichneumonid parasitoid and a little later in the year most were hammered by a braconid parasitoid (both of these are small wasps).  By the end of the year most were being killed by a couple of parasitic flies.  This doesn't even include those that would have been lost to predation by various larger wasps if I wouldn't have removed them from the field into small
 cups filled with food.  I once watched a very large tobacco hornworm get torn to pieces by an amazingly large and beautiful paper wasp.  The hornworm thrashed about like crazy whenever the wasp came near but it would skillfully fly up behind the beast and bite right behind the head area.  After a few of these bites the hornworm was basically defenseless and the wasp carved up large pieces and flew off.  Every bit as intense as a lion taking down a zebra.  Nowadays I prize the nests of all manner of wasps because of my garden.  I have a nice bald-faced hornet nest on one corner of the house and a whole bunch of paper wasp nests all over the place.  They terrorize the local caterpillar population.  I also plant lots of herbs and flowers to bring in parasitic wasps, flies and all kinds of other predatory insects.  They really love stuff like goatsbeard, summersweet (sweet pepperbush) and bottlebrush buckeyes.

Today I got stung by a really cool insect.  When I went to cut some of the gladiolas to bring in to the house I thought I was pricked by one of the sharp leaf tips.  It hurt more than just a prick though and I looked down to see a saddleback caterpillar.  I had never seen one in the wild before and I had no idea that they occurred this far north.  When I looked them up in a book I read that they can be found from Florida to Massachusetts to Missouri to Texas.  I would rate the sting about the same as a paper wasp.  Not too bad.  I was surprised to see that Schmidt ranked paper wasps ahead of yellowjackets and honeybees.  He must mean a different species than the common ones here in the east...maybe like the giant one I saw in Tennessee.  There are over 20 species of paper wasps in North America.  I attached some photos of the cool saddlebacks plus a picture of the flowers that were well worth the little sting.

Doug

one 130K View Download

two 168K View Download

three 145K View Download

worth 279K View Download