Sting
The stinger of the Asian giant hornet is about 6 mm (ΒΌ in) in length, and injects an especially potent venom that contains, like many bee and wasp venoms, a cytolytic peptide (specifically, a mastoparan) that can damage tissue by stimulating phospholipase action, in addition to its own intrinsic phospholipase. Masato Ono, an entomologist at Tamagawa University near Tokyo, described the sensation as feeling "like a hot nail being driven into my leg".
An allergic human stung by the giant hornet may die from an allergic reaction to the venom, but the venom contains a neurotoxin called mandaratoxin (MDTX), a single-chain polypeptide with a molecular weight of approximately 20,000 u, which can be lethal even to people who are not allergic if the dose is sufficient. Each year in Japan, the human death toll caused by Asian giant hornet stings is significant.
Read more about this topic: Asian Giant Hornet
Famous quotes containing the word sting:
“A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Ghost. The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.
Hamlet. O my prophetic soul!
My uncle?
Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“All this stuff you heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.... Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost—and will never lose—a war, because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.”
—Francis Ford Coppola (b. 1939)