The Executioner Wasp carries one of the most painful, and certainly most venomous, stings in the world. Let's take a look at this poisonous insect.
Be aware of the Executioner Wasp!
Polistes Carnifex, or commonly known as the Executioner Wasp, is a large yellow and brown paper wasp that's known for their excruciatingly painful sting. Not only is the Executioner Wasp's sting very, very, painful, it's also filled with venom.
Nicknamed the "King of Sting", the pain level from this insect sting is only topped by the Bullet Ant and the Tarantula Hawk — however, some people have said that the Executioner Wasp's sting is hands-down the most painful sting in the world, like YouTuber Coyote Peterson. Peterson is known for his YouTube channel 'Brave Wilderness' (which has 18.1 million subscribers!), where he demonstrates a series of painful insect bites; he's also known as the host of Animal Planet's 'Coyote Peterson: Brave the Wild' tv show.
The 411 on the Executioner Wasp
The Executioner Wasp is one of the largest members of the Vespidae wasp family. This very large flying insect is native to and can be mainly found in Central and South America. Executioner Wasps measures about one-inch long, with a distinctively long yellow exoskeleton, along with a way longer stinger than most other insects.
They live in small colonies and like to build their nests under building roofs or hanging from tree branches.
The Sting
While they're a relatively non-aggressive insect, Executioner Wasps will sting when provoked — and boy oh boy does it hurt! (After all, it IS called the EXECUTIONER wasp!) This wasp's extremely potent sting ranks at about a high 3 on the 4-point Schmidt Sting Pain Index: a scale created by famed entomologist Justin Schmidt to measure and categorize pain levels of the Hymenopteran order of insects.
The sting from the Executioner Wasp is indeed no joke: the extremely painful and excruciating sting has been described as "Like ripping flesh off", as Peterson puts it. The YouTuber, after being stung and spent the initial first minutes screaming, yelling, and rolling on the ground wriggling with intense pain, also stated the searing pain lasted for days and ended up rotting a hole-shaped scar into his arm.
"My arm was swollen for days, and eventually a small hole rotted in my arm from the venom at the sting site." Peterson said.
The Executioner Wasp's sting is so incredibly painful because the insect sting contains venom that pushes itself into the victim's skin — leading it to kill the cells around the sting site.
What do you think of the Executioner Wasp's sting? Let us know on the Wide Open Pets Facebook!
