Schmidt Sting Pain Index
The Schmidt Sting Pain Index ( Engl. For Schmidt-stitch pain index ) is a humorous scale for the classification of by insect bites caused pain.
The American entomologist Justin O. Schmidt (* 1947), after whom this index is named, was (according to his information) stung by 150 insect species from all over the world in the course of his working life. He classified the pain felt afterwards into four levels, with some levels being subdivided according to decimal places. He did not include insects whose stings did not cause him pain in this scale.
In 2015 Schmidt was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for his Sting Pain Index (because of his humorousness and eccentricity) . He received the award in the Physiology and Entomology category. He shared it with Michael J. Smith, who was awarded it because he was (heroically) deliberately stabbed on 25 places on his body to find out which of these places bee stings are most or least painful.
The Schmidt Sting Pain Index comprises the following levels.
| step | pain | insect |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Light, fleeting, almost fruity. As if a tiny spark burns a single hair on your arm. | Blood bees , furrow bees |
| 1.2 | Sharp, suddenly, somewhat unsettling. As if you walk across a flokato carpet , become statically charged and get an electric shock. | Fire ants |
| 1.8 | A rare, stabbing, somehow high pain. As if someone shoots a staple in the cheek. | Knot ants |
| 2.0 | Rich, hearty and hot. As if WC Fields extinguish a cigar on your tongue. | Short-headed wasps , Dolichovespula maculata |
| 2.x | Like a broken match head that burns on your skin. | Honey bees , hornets |
| 3.0 | Corrosive, burning and relentless. As if someone were using a drill to expose an ingrown toenail or pouring a beaker of hydrochloric acid over a cut. | Ants wasps , Polistes carolina , Polistes metricus |
| 4.0 | Violent, dazzling, terribly electric. Like someone dropping a running hairdryer into your bubble bath. | Pepsis formosa |
| 4.x | Pure, intense, radiant pain. It's like walking over glowing coals with a seven centimeter long rusty nail stuck in your heel. | 24 hour ant |
literature
- David Evans: Insect Defenses: Adaptive Mechanisms and Strategies of Prey and Predators. ISBN 0-88706-896-0 .
Web links
- The Schmidt Sting Pain Index - Zooillogix in English, accessed October 13, 2017
- Oh, Sting, Where Is Thy Death? - The New York Times in English, accessed October 13, 2017