Spider Wasp - Schmidt Pain Index

Schmidt Pain Index

In 1984, Joseph O. Schmidt, a researcher from Arizona, developed a hymenopteran sting pain scale, now known as the Schmidt sting pain index. In this index, a 0 is given to a sting from an insect that can not break through human skin, a 2 is given for intermediate pain, and a 4 is given for intense pain. The scale rates stings from 78 different species in 42 different genera. Spider wasps of the genus Pepsis, also known as tarantula hawks, have a sting rating of 4. The sting is described as "blinding, fierce, and shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has been dropped into your bubble bath." Only the bite of the Bullet Ant, Paraponera clavata, is ranked higher, with a 4+ rating.

  • Spider wasp flying with prey

  • Anoplius viaticus (L.) (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae) with prey Nuctenea umbratica (Clerck) (Arachnida: Araneidae), England UK

  • Unidentified species of spider wasp hunting in Texas, United States

  • Spider wasp with its prey near Heemstede, The Netherlands

  • Spider wasp attacking huntsman spider in Sydney, Australia

  • A pompilid from Bangalore

  • A Western Australian pompilid has captured a large huntsman spider.

  • A pompilid has captured a spider in Quito Ecuador.

  • The anaesthetised spider is carried up to a nest in the roof.

  • A spider wasp is dragging its captured prey in Sydney, Australia.

Read more about this topic:  Spider Wasp

Famous quotes containing the words pain and/or index:

    “The years of imprisonment hardened me.... Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn’t be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life, when that pain becomes a way of life, I no longer have the emotion of fear. ... there is no longer anything I can fear. There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn’t any pain I haven’t known.”
    —Winnie Mandela (b. 1936)

    “Exile as a mode of genius no longer exists; in place of Joyce we have the fragments of work appearing in Index on Censorship.”
    —Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)