Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - The Bullet Ant Episode - Is Wes the New King of Sting? ft. Jack's World of Wildlife

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Wes covers the history of cataloguing and experiencing the extreme pain of the bullet ant's sting, and then gets into his own brush with one down in Costa Rica. Jack from Jack's World of Wildlife then comes on for an interview with the guys. Yowch! Watch here: https://youtu.be/U1qbes7l6m8 ~~ Graza Olive Oil: Take your food to the next level with Graza Olive Oil. Visit https://graza.co/TOOTH and use promo code TOOTH today for 10% off your first order! LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack with any purchase at http://drinklmnt.com/toot⁠h Miracle Brand: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://trymiracle.com/TOOTH and use the code TOOTH to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Ollie Pet Food: Take the guesswork out of your dog's well-being. Go to http://ollie.com/tooth and use code tooth to get 60% off your first box! Rocket Money: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to http://RocketMoney.com/YSK today. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Register today at Richfield, Utah.com. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Tooth and Claw podcast. We have Wes Larson, the Grizz Kid, the wildlife biologist that we all wish we were. No. And I'm his younger brother. Mike doesn't. Jeff Larson.

Oh, Mike wishes he was the wildlife biologist that you were. Oh, man. Every time I talk to West, he's just complaining about everything. Mike. Mike Smith, he's the only one of us three that I think has gotten a death threat. from a listener. I don't think me or once has yet.

So. Yeah. Just once. Yeah. Yeah. Listen. I was... You're talking about

something you shouldn't be talking about. No, I should. I stepped way outside the boundaries of good conversational taste. I dared to say something slightly negative about Taylor Swift once.

Death threat. But that's fine. Listen, I was, we were raised in the Wild West of the internet. She's got her shooters. I was on something awful for Chan back in the day.

I mean, it's like getting a death threat is kind of like a write-up passage almost for... I know, I wish I had one. I remember when I was in... I'll send you one. When I was in high school and chat rooms started, it was like... Oh my gosh.

Constant. No holds barred. You could say whatever you wanted to anyone. Yeah. Oh, there's still places like that. There are, but I don't think it should be that way. I want to say that. Streaming sports, it's just like I can't close that chat quick enough.

Yeah. Like on an illegal... sports stream. Yeah, but sorry I sent you that death threat on a fake account, Mike. You're old. But you, I mean, stay away from her, Mike. I'm trying my best. I'm in the process of moving right now just to an apartment complex.

My place is getting a little old here. It's bittersweet for me too, because I lived in that apartment for five years before Jeff moved in for about five years. Let me just say, too, you did a much better job of making it a comfortable place. Pretty much from day two with you, it was cluttered. Yeah. Yeah, I love that place. But you left like half your stuff here.

Only the stuff you wanted. I love that. I love that apartment, Jeff. I am going to be a little sad. Didn't you leave a present that Jeff gifted you? He was like a beetle or something, right? You just left your cousin. I did leave that, and I do kind of feel bad about that.

It was getting... It's cool. Yeah, well, just to explain, it was one of the better gifts Jeff's ever given. It was a big Japanese beetle. Japanese. Or not Japanese. Sorry, it was like a Hercules beetle or something, but it... Could have been from Japan.

Who knows? Those mounted bugs often get these little mites in them that eat them from the inside, and then they get really, really fragile because it's just like the shell of the bug that's left. And I honestly, like honest to God, I was worried that if I traveled with it, it would just like completely disintegrate. Yeah, it's really cool. It's a cool amount. It's a cool beetle. I regret not taking it because it has held up.

But I honestly worried that if I tried to move it to Montana, when I opened it, it would just be like, or when I like took it out of whatever box it was in, it would just be disintegrated. Well, it's crazy because like it had a bunch of bugs in there. And you were right about that. And you were like, I think whoever did this beetle, like, sent it with a bunch of bugs in it. Yeah. But I cleaned out every single, like, part of it once you left. Yeah. And I hung it back up.

And it's bugs from freaking Salt Lake that are getting in there. It's like little tiny bugs from here that we're getting into it. Yeah. So, yeah. I would happily take it back, but I also don't feel like I have the right to ask for it back. I just, I honestly didn't think it would make it to Montana. So that's why I left it. But I loved it.

It's a great present. Very thoughtful. Yeah, you can have it back. But I made that trophy that we won in exchange. Deal. The best podcast in the world. That's a great trade. That's sitting somewhere gathering dust.

Yeah, you got it. All right. Well, speaking of bugs, we're going to talk about bugs today. We got a bug episode. Yeah. Nice. We've been talking about bears for weeks. So we're going to do another bee animal, which is bugs.

Bullet. ants to be specific. Oh wow. Whoa. Triple B. Yeah. How many bullet ants beats a bear? Uh, probably like 10.

I think if a bear got stung by like a couple bullet ants, it would be out of there. Well, I'd really mean like to the death. Uh, to the death, I don't know, like a few thousand. Because a bear would eat 10 bullet ants too and be pretty happy. But I think if like it got stung right off the bat, it would kind of be like, I don't want to mess with these things. So I guess it depends on what you mean by beat. If it's a fight to the death, I think the bear wins until it's overwhelmed by bullet ants. Sure.

But 10 bullet ants could make it pull a John Sina. Yes. Whatever found with a little smile on his face. Oh, okay. He just, he just, that was his whole gimmick was he would never quit and he just quit. Okay. Yeah. So anyone listening who hasn't wanted to quit fighting cancer or whatever.

things you can quit now. Yeah. John Cena set the stage for you. Sina was inspiring. Yeah. So, he's a real, real trailblazer for lots of different things. He's a quitter. All right.

Well, to start this episode, I'm going to take you guys back to 2004. And during that year, explorers and notable wildlife officiunato's Stephen O. And Christopher Pontius traveled to the British. Brazilian Amazon, and they filmed a segment with a local tribe for their totally scientifically sound and well-respected nature program, Wild Boys. You guys remember Wild Boys, right? With a Z. With what, Jeff?

With a Z. Wild Boys. I described it accurately, right, Mike? Oh, yeah. Yeah, for like the first couple seasons. By the end of its run, it was basically just jackass again. But, yeah, first two seasons were pretty animal-centric. I think by the first episode of its run, it was pretty much.

Yeah, that's true. It's messed up that you say, I can't say I'm a scientist, and then you'll call them scientists. Oh, if you want to rewind, Jeff, I did not call them scientists. I called them Explorers and Wildlife Officiottos, which I would say for you as well. Didn't you say for scientific purposes? I said it was scientifically sound, which you can say stuff that's scientifically sound. That doesn't make you a scientist. Yeah.

I got you. So Wild Boys was actually... Jeff, trying to get on me. I was very careful about my wording there. Wild Boys was essentially a continuation of jackass. It featured Stevo and Chris Pontius. They travel the world. They basically just did a bunch of dumb stunts with wild animals.

When it came out, it was probably my favorite show. Now with kind of... Yeah, with clearer eyes, I can see a fair amount of... No, but it didn't age well. Especially with you getting all like environmental and smart. Yeah. Making us feel bad about animals. Being a biologist now, knowing about animal welfare about what does actually cause stress to animals, I can see that a lot of what they did wasn't all that ethical.

And they kind of just would slap this thing on. I say slap because a spider monkey slaps a minute. But at the end of each episode, they would say like, we love animals and don't do what we're doing. But it's like you guys don't have any special. ability to take care of these animals either. So I don't think that was good enough for me. But I am a big fan of the Jackass franchise in general. I don't like how they treat snakes on Jackass or like their bear segment in the last

movie. But I do like Jackass quite a bit. That's just kind of a quick disclaimer. Bam treats snakes pretty appropriate. Yeah, it just gives them plenty of space. Don't touch them, give them space. Yeah. There's just like even that one where they trick Bam into falling in the pit and then

they throw snakes on him, they're just like chucking snakes down there. And I really don't like that scene because that can really hurt a snake. You can't just throw them around like that. Okay. Good to know. Anyway, season two, episode two of Wild Boys, the boys travel to Brazil. They get up to their typical hijinks. But midway through the episode, they do the stunt that would really become cemented

in my brain and stick with me for the past 20 years when I think about the show. And that was the traditional manhood ritual of the saturday. Atari Mawe people of the Amazon. It's a ritual that would ultimately send both of the host to the hospital for their first time ever on the show. So in this segment, you see Steve and Chris, and they enter a tent, and they're presented with these gloves. And these gloves look like these big oven mitts almost that are made of like these dried woven fibers from different plants. They have these different kind of intricate decorations on them. And they're told to stick their hands in these gloves. And what we learn as the watchers is that inside of these gloves, there are hundreds of

bullet ants that have been kind of sedated to be captured, and then they're woven into the glove with their abdomen sticking into the middle of the glove. So it's just all of these ant butts with their stingers ready to go, and you're supposed to put your hand in there. And the idea is you keep this glove on for like eight to ten minutes while you dance and do this traditional ceremony, and this is a right of manhood for the men in this tribe. And women are allowed to participate, but they don't because what I read is they think it's stupid. So women, again, smarter than men. Is that what coyote Peterson's always, he gets bitten and he's doing the dance, right? He's just doing one at a time, yeah. Okay. Yeah, one dance at a time. And boys in

this tribe are often expected to do this multiple times throughout their kind of journey to manhood. You have to keep it on for a certain amount of time. On your episode, Jeff, you said it was 10 times or something like that? That's unbelievable. Like after once, I'm fine not being a man. People, you're not going crazy. We have mentioned this ritual before, but just wait until Wes talks about it. No, it's fine.

Jeff did an episode on our subscriber channel called King of Sting. It's a really fun episode. We are going to retread. You don't have to listen to that one anymore. Wes has got it. No. You should definitely listen to it. I did one too about like the tribal rituals too.

I think that was in King of Sting, but I'm not sure. You did two Kings of Sting episodes, I know. But check those out. Subscribe if you're not. It's a really fun episode. We're going to retried a little bit of that information, but I have some new angles and it's going to be fun. Okay. Yeah.

So basically Chris and Stivo put these gloves on. Steve-O immediately starts screaming and takes it off. But Chris actually leaves them on for the full eight minutes. And while they have these gloves on, they're screaming, they're jumping around in pain. They're still laughing and joking at the end of the segment. But you can tell they're in real pain. And these are people that are used to a lot of pain. We've seen them do crazy things with all sorts of different animals and stunts and whatnot.

But then, I don't know, we're going to talk about that later. But I mean, Steveo put a hook through his mouth and jumped in the water with a mako shark, you know, like some crazy stuff. But then we cut to them in the hospital getting shots to help with the pain. And then the next morning, their hands are still really swollen and tender. And for me, this was my first introduction to the bullet ant. I had never heard of them before this segment. I had never really conceptualized that there was an Anne out there with that powerful of a sting. but then last month I actually got to have my own bullet-ant sting experience in Costa Rica.

Oh, mama. So this is actually going to be our first episode where the victim is one of the three of us. It was our first trip where we had like an animal attack that was kind of merited a full story. But it was an interesting experience for me. And I want to rewind a little bit and talk about kind of my history with bullet ants. So my first time seeing them in the wild was actually in their wild. was actually in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I was with a local guide who was indigenous to that area.

We're out walking at night near a jungle lodge. We're looking for snakes and frogs and spiders and whatever else. And we had just seen a huge wandering spider, a few really big tarantulas, like a lot of creepy crawlies. And this guy didn't even flinch around any of these things. Like he went right up to the spiders to take photos to help me see him. But then as we're walking, I see him quickly move away from a large tree.

and he turns around and tells me to like give it a wide berth. And I ask him why and he points at a line of really large black ants that are moving up this tree and across the path. So he he mouthed to me, said bullet ants. And then he wags his finger at me in the universal sign, which is like, don't with that animal, you know. So I watched the ants from a safe distance for a second. I made sure there was no stragglers around me or crawling up my leg or anything. And I caught up with this guide. and I asked him about the ants.

I said, hey, do they actually deserve their reputation? And he told me that it was definitely deserved. They were the wildlife that he always watched out for when he was leading groups. And I asked him if he had ever been stung. And he said that he had multiple times. And then I asked him what it felt like. And he just made a finger gun at me and pretended to shoot. Which I don't know if he's ever been shot.

But I feel like you need to know what a bullet feels like. Yeah, it's true. I feel like the ant might hurt. more for like the very start? Yeah, we'll talk about that. I don't know. I think a bullet's worse than the sand. I've been stuck now.

Entire time? Yeah, I don't know. I would much rather get stung. Goes up so much if you get shot by a bullet. I feel like for a little bit you're kind of like. What I can say is there's lots of videos online of people getting stung by bullet ants. I don't think there's any of people just like taking a bullet in the forearm. Jeff showed me a few

Yeah, Jeff has showed us those videos as easy I don't think it's on purpose though Yeah, doesn't feel very good From what I saw Not loving your AT&T or T mobile bill Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot Good news, bring your AT&T or T mobile bill

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I talked to more guides and locals that have been stung. All of them described it as a pretty unique, incredible type of pain. And then, like I just mentioned, there's lots of YouTube videos, Coyote Peterson being the most famous of these sting fluencers. But there are a lot of videos of people getting stung by this ant online, including a recent one I just saw from Nat Geo where the person says it's a bullet ant, but it's this tiny little red ant. But this all goes to show that there's a lot of videos and stories. And we're going to talk to one other person actually about their bullet ant sting, which is one of the creators Jeff brought up in his episode, who I kind of dismissed when we first talked about him. But I really like him.

And that's all thanks to Jeff. He's the man. He's great. And I'm going to give him a better intro later. Jack's, he is the man. Yeah, I feel like you're on the path, but they're still ahead of you for King to Sting. Oh, yeah. I'm not, I'm the Duke of Sting.

The 12th in Lion Prince. Yeah. Yeah, what was Matt Damon in the last duel? He was like the, fucking Earl. Yeah, I'll be the Earl of Sting that everyone kind of doesn't respect. One of my favorite videos I stumbled across is from this Australian comedy duo. They're called Hamish and Andy. They go to the Amazon.

They do the Bullet Ant Glove. Andy doesn't do it, but Hamish does. And this is like, they were like radio DJs and then they started their own comedy show. And then they did videos and whatnot. And I really liked this video because these are not wildlife influencers. They're not people that are like getting views by rolling around on the ground and over exaggerating or anything. Like, they, I think we saw a very honest reaction of what the sting was like for them

in the bullet ant glove, which I think is the worst case scenario for these stings. And I did just want to show you guys a little clip from it because Hamish just loses his mind and he genuinely seems to be in the worst pain that a human being can experience. So I just want to play a quick clip from that, which I'm going to pull up now. Oh, God. Could I put these gloves on and keep my cool in front of the tribe? Have mercy. Obviously not.

Geez, with a couple of deep breaths though, I felt like I'd be back to normal in no time. Can I get you a panadol? A niraphan fuss? What do I do? What do I do? You have to dance to release the pain, am it? Okay, can we dance then? Geez, I was going to be surprised if this helped.

Seems like a very strained corrective from the doctor, isn't it? Dr. It's a doctor, isn't it? Just dance. And evidently, it didn't. Hang in there, buddy. Hang in there. Because Hames soon commenced what we now know as the six stages of sting pain. Shrieking. He-hee-hee. Refusal to dance.

You're happy to dance. I don't want to dance. This is the last time I've ever felt like dancing. Screaming slash and or swearing. Sweating. Some shaking. Bighting. Bighting.

stick requests. Problem was, this went on for an hour, relentlessly. Cold water? How's that? Any ice. Yeah, I'll get your eyes. All right. So you can see, it's pretty intense for him.

And it actually goes on and gets like a little darker. Like he really takes a turn to where he's in a lot of pain and can't handle it anymore. and they need to go to the hospital. And he spends the night in the hospital on like a morphine drip. So there are, like where I'm kind of trying to get at with this is there's a wide variety of reactions to the sting. There are people that had similar reactions to me in their stings

where it was kind of like really hurt, but it wasn't crazy. And then there's people that, that's not what I'm saying. But I do think the glove is on its own level. You know, doing the glove and getting does. if not hundreds of these stings, just ratchets it up to kind of an unbelievable degree of pain. There's a shot in that clip where it just cuts to a young boy. I think it's a boy, and it's just so messed up that they just like, it's going to be you soon, little guy. That'll be you someday.

It really just broke my heart. This is your future. It's a interesting one where it's like, obviously it's incredibly intense pain that you get put through, especially with like the gloves. Yeah. It feels like it is akin to the most pain we can get, like getting burned or getting shot or whatever. Yeah.

But then like there's no permanent damage at all. Like the next day you're fine. So that's where it is kind of like it almost does make you want to do it because it's just like I kind of want to put myself through torture just so I know what torture is like and then I'll be fine the next day, you know? Exactly. And for me, you know, I'm going to tell my story, but... I think the women should do it.

I do too. For me, I think that was the real, like, kind of silver lining for my sting was that I got to have that experience, you know, like afterward, I kind of got to be like, well, I've done that now, you know? Dude, I think you're going to get addicted. I think you're going to wonder how... I think if I tell you enough times an executioner wasp is worse, you're going to get stuck by an executioner wasp. I'm going to start being...

A sting fluencer. Yeah, you're right. Anyway, so Jeff talked about Justin Schmidt on his King of Sting's episodes. He recently passed, but he is commonly known as the King of Sting because this is the guy that did the actual study on what the pain level of these different stings were and how they affect people. He's an entomologist, and he created what's commonly known as the Schmidt Pain Index, which Mike Chris, your friend.

was nice enough to send me that after she learned that I had been stung, which was kind of funny. Yeah, it did. Yeah. This pain index really just involves hymenopterin stings, which are sawflies, bees, wasps, and ants. So I do think if we were to incorporate like scorpions, spiders, arachnids into the sting thing, they're going to be in their own category

because they can, you know, do a lot more damage than these insects can. So on this pain index, he had four levels. The European honeybee was kind of serving as the anchor. And in a way, he would base all the other ratings off of how they compare to a honeybee sting. So the honeybee was on level two. And what he would look at was the pain level and pain duration. And then during the time that he created this index, he took 78 different stings from different hymenoptera species. and only three of them scored on level four.

The first of those was tarantial hawk wasp, which he described the sting as blinding, fierce, and shockingly electric, but that the pain was very short-lived and only lasted about five minutes. Another score of four. That one looks the coolest of all of them. It's so cool. And that's the one, they're called tarantula hawks because they'll lay their eggs inside of tarantulas,

which then hatch and eat the tarantula alive. So it's like a pretty metal animal. I wonder if tarantulas have a pain index for those. Yeah. There's like a tarantula entomologist. It's like, hey, this one's pretty bad. Come up with like really, it was exquisite. The pain was exquisite.

Exquisite as I was eating alive by wasp larva. Blinding, shrieking pain. Another score of four was the Northern Warrior Wasp, which is also synonymous. Aweka septentrial analysis. I massacred that, but Northern Warrior Watson. I like the other name more. Yeah. Schmidt described their sting as torture.

You were chained in the flow of an active volcano. And then he remarked, why did I start this list? That sting lasted about two hours. So Gallum knows what that feels like. Oh, yeah, active volcano. Yeah. That's true. He didn't care, dude.

He had his precious back. He was in total euphoria. That's true. Yeah, if Schmidt had the one ring, he would have been like, yeah, worth it. Yeah, this doesn't matter. None of this matters. I have my precious. I wonder, like, in that video, West played, there's just nothing that could take away the pain.

You'd think the ring of power, you would still feel the pain? That's a good question. Yeah. Yeah, right? Does turning invisible make the pain go away? I don't know. No, I guess not, because when Frodo was stabbed by the Morgoff blade or the Morgel blade, he still felt pain and he was wearing the right.

Okay. Schmidt's worst sting was that of the bullet ant. He gave it the maximum of a four plus and not only was the pain comparable or higher than all of the other worst stings, it also lasted over eight hours. So here's how he described the sting of the bulladant, which is also called paraponera clavada.

Paraparoponera clavada stings induced immediate, excruciating pain and numbness to pencil point pressure. as well as trembling in the form of a totally uncontrollable urge to shake the affected part. In a later work, he described the sting as pure, intense, brilliant pain, like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel. So pretty intense. I like this guy's description, so we've talked about him before, but he is very descriptive. Yeah.

Punch on for writing. So, well, I guess we can wait to get into your experience, but things just aren't adding up quite for me yet, but maybe they will when you get into it. Well, like I said, there's a whole different range of how people experience these stings. I did see videos that people kind of felt it the same way that I did, where it was intense pain, but not like life-changing.

Right. Okay. So let's get into my story. The amount of people complaining about one single ant sting. It's crazy. Yeah. Get over it. The amount.

Bigger things. How many? How many are you seeing complain? This is Guide, Schmidt, Wes. Two, three. You're right. For like 20 minutes. Yeah.

All right. Never mind. You're a good call, Jeff. So on the second. The watch by get it. It's just an ant. You're just, you're talking as if this is like something that like impedes on your daily life is just having to hear people complain about ants. I mean, I've been stung by an ant.

All right. Right. On the second full day of our Costa Rica trip, we had set up this canyaneering experience in the rainforest. And it was actually really cool. Either of you cared to explain kind of the basics of what that looked like. Nah. Okay. I can explain it. I'm happy to. Jeff, do you want to do it? Yeah. Of the canyeneering trip. Just like, is a lot of repelling through little waterfalls and then at the end of big waterfall. all, it's just like kind of following a steep stream through the jungle is raining the entire time, which kind of added to the atmosphere of it.

A lot of people on the trip face their fears. We had Avery, who's like legally blind made it through, which kind of was incredible to everyone. Yeah, the most impressive thing I've ever seen. Yeah. Really. Yeah, just that she would even want to do it. It's crazy to me.

Yeah, it was really cool. It was a lot of, like, repelling that would then turn into ziplining. It was much cooler than I expected, because you guys know me, I'm not a big ziplining fan. We're two for our ziplining on our trips, though. It always, though, feels to me like a tourist trap kind of thing, but this didn't feel like that at all. It felt very wild and fun. When we ziplined in Kenya, West would get stuck every single slide. I'm not good at ziplining.

I'm not good at it. I kept trying to tell him to leave back and then on like the last one you did And you finally did it I was good at the canyon airing was fun Because I've repelled a lot I you know I had to repel for Hawkwatch a little bit and stuff But um it was really fun and much more adventurous than I ever thought

Because we did a lot of walking through this streambed This canyon like with slick rocks in the jungle It was really neat okay It felt like Lara Croft Finally Yeah Oh I've been wanting to for so long.

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and it's just covered in rainforest vegetation. It's raining, it's misty. We get to a section with a little waterfall. And one by one, what we did is cannonball into this tiny pool of water that's barely big enough for our bodies. you had to just like perfectly hit it. And then we'd go a little further where they had a stop and wait again. We had about 20 or so people in our group and were all kind of spaced out over the entire canyon.

So like we didn't really see Jeff hardly at all, but me and Mike were really close to each other. And when they had us wait at the top of this little waterfall, me and Mike were in the second group of five or so people that were there and waiting. And as we were waiting, we watched one of these guides lay his body flat over. the top of this small waterfall, and he kind of creates a human dam. And meanwhile, they took five people in front of us to the bottom of this waterfall and made them like a human centipede, but without the ass to mouth stuff, more like a human caterpillar. Yeah, unfortunately.

Yeah. I think that two are kind of gets a cost a little more. Oh, shit. Yeah, exactly. That's the extra price. But everyone's pretty much sitting in each other's laps in single file at the bottom of this waterfall. And the water kept building up behind this guy that's the human dam.

And then when he couldn't hold the water anymore, he did a countdown, jumped out of the way. And the pool that he had created rushed down this waterfall and over the top of the five people that were waiting below. So it covers them in like their inside of a waterfall. And it was a fun little trick. I really liked that part. Yeah. There's a reason I'm explaining this in such great detail. We'll get to it.

So the group that me and Mike were in was next. and Nure, our friend Nour was in front of me and we're sitting in this essentially dry waterfall waiting for the water to build up behind the guide and as we're sitting there I notice a bug in the water about five feet away. I look at it closely and it looked really familiar and I pointed out to Nour and I said look there's a bullet ant

and Nour was familiar with what a bullet ant was she got a little concerned and I told her it was already downstream of us we didn't need to worry about it but that we could keep an eye on it. Then the water's released, it pours down all over us, and when it was finished, we get up and walk away, and about 20 seconds later,

I felt a sharp burning sensation just above my elbow on my right inner tricep. So I knew pretty much immediately that I'd been stung or bitten by something venomous. It felt like a wasp thing, but one that was getting progressively stronger and stronger by the second. The initial feeling was like someone had put a hot cold, like inside of my arm that was somehow just getting bigger and bigger and hotter and hotter.

I remember when it first happened, you remarked very calmly and really not in any pain at all at this point. You're just like, pretty sure I just got stung by a bullet ant. Yeah, pretty sure. And that was about the extent of like my experience of your bullet ant, bullet ant encounter. But then it, yeah. Yeah. Pretty quickly evolved into something more. I was in pain, but it was, wasn't like what I'd seen on YouTube, you know. So I was kind of like, I'm not sure if this was what it was, but I did tell you where it had happened and I said, you know, just in case I'm unconscious, like, this is where I got stung. And it's not that the pain was that bad. It was that I was not sure what had gotten me and had it been like a venomous snake, like a fertile

lance or something. I wanted you to know where it had happened just in case I passed out. All right. So looking back, I do think I kind of knew what had happened. I think there was probably a group of ants that were moving along those rocks at the base of the vegetation. And they had given the water like plenty of space. But when the guys blocked the water and then let it go, it swelled bigger and hit parts of the rock that it wasn't touching before and washed the ants into the water. That's what I think must have happened because there was suddenly all this. like debris in the water and whatnot from that rush of water. And I think that's probably what got the ants in there. And I think one of them just got on my arm and I didn't even notice it. And I would also explain why they were kind of ready to sting. Because you can actually usually like, you could probably let a bullet ant go over your hand and it wouldn't do anything.

But most of the people that get stings online are like grabbing it and forcing it to sting them. They're not just like stinging willy-nilly. But I got stung what I thought was just kind of willy-nilly-nilly. Yeah, and the willy. Exactly. So the pain for me didn't really start to flare up in a concerning way until we were walking up these switchbacks to get back to the little building that we started from. And up until that point, I thought maybe I just got stung by a bad wasp or something,

but my mind was starting to drift to, you know, what it could be. And I was really looking forward to getting the changing area where I could get my shirt off and see the mark. Because at that point, I was like, this could be a huge gash. this could be something crazy underneath there because the pain was getting really intense. But I wasn't really telling anyone at that point that it was starting to get concerning. So the pain, like I took my wet shirt off and I saw this raised sting spot. It kind of looked like a little donut. And there was red irritated skin radiating out from it.

But at this point, it kind of just looked like a rash to me. So Emily gave me some hydrochortizone. But now there was like this darker spot that was starting to form. and the sting and the pain were getting like a lot worse. And I thought the pain would have subsided by then and the fact that it hadn't and it was just getting more and more intense, I started to really think that it was probably a bullet ant. So I showed one of the guides and he was like, yeah, that's a bullet ant.

And then by the time Jeff got there, the dark spot had started turning purple and it had this really like kind of target pattern forming on it, darkest in the middle and progressively lighter as you move away from the sting. And something interesting to me is I've watched these videos. Very few of them have that kind of like bruising almost. But I think it's because they all are taking it like on forearms or hands. And mine was in like a more kind of fleshy area.

And I did find a couple other photos of people that got stung in like fleshier, more mussely parts. And they also had like the purple and bruising and like the weird marks that I had. Yeah. Yeah, no, it is. it was a like surprising mark. Yeah. It was like, wow, that's pretty big. Yeah, I'll post some photos on Instagram, but it, yeah, at that point I was like, okay, this is, this is something that I kind of have to keep my, my eye on.

The pain really hit a peak when we were eating lunch. And it was funny because as we were eating, Jeff had a cat that came up and sat like right next to him and then like got on his lap. and was like eating from his plate with him. And it was really cute. Like it was a really cute moment. And it was really funny. And I was just staring at it trying to distract myself because the pain was getting like so crazy that I just needed something else to focus on. And I was really happy that I had that distraction.

Jeff had a little buddy. Yeah. I think it was at lunch too. It was the second time you told me. And that's when I knew it was kind of. serious because you were like, if it gets much worse, you start considering maybe going to the hospital. I was like, oh, wow.

Okay. So this is, this is a real, like, because you did a great job of like staying calm. But yeah, once you started saying that more than once, I started to get pretty concerned myself. Yeah. And part of that was because I still, because I didn't see it, I still wasn't like 100% convinced it was a bulletin at this point. So, like, if it had been something that it could have been, you know, like a spot.

or something that could have been worse, than I didn't want to, like, put it off too long. You know, we've told so many stories of people that, yeah, anyway. So, yeah, like Mike said, I had started remembering these stories of people who needed to be hospitalized from stings or got really sick from them. So it's kind of starting to spiral out a little. But the pain wasn't what I had imagined. It really, really hurt.

It's by far the worst sting I've ever had in my life. But I didn't feel like I needed to, like, scream or shake or roll on the ground. And I do think part of that is because most of the stings I had seen had either been from people who were kind of hamming it up to get more views or from people that had done the glove. And I do think the glove is a different experience. One that I'm going to make Jeff do someday, I think.

Whatever. If I, like, start crying, you're going to say I'm hamming it up for a judge. You got to be, you got to become a man somehow, though. you know and that's our last shot it obviously hurts a lot let let him let him let him ham it up i didn't say any names i was just saying there's people it wasn't just him like there's a number of videos online of people like losing their minds and but here's yeah here's honestly what i and i mean this i do think this affects people differently and i don't think it's a toughness thing i think it's a physiological response to venom kind of thing.

And I feel lucky that I didn't have that, like, overwhelming type of pain, but it was crazy pain. And it lasts forever. And I'm going to go a little bit more into what it felt like. And it definitely depends, like, where you get bit and how well it gets you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Whatever. They can bite, too. Yeah. They do, but that doesn't hurt that much. do you think maybe this is something we'll get into in a bit but are there levels to how badly like sometimes snakes will have a dry bite kind of thing where they don't really inject it's still a painful experience but maybe they haven't really put their full I don't know what the

word is all their venom like all of their weapons at their disposal yeah exactly their heart's not in it really do you think ants can kind of just half-heartedly sting sometimes and not do their full damage. I don't know. But what I do know is that they are like wasps in that they can sting multiple times. So you can get a lot of stings from one ant if it is there long enough. I don't think I got more than one. And I think it was kind of a glancing sting too, because I just had the one sting mark. It was kind of a drive-by too. I was floating down the water. Probably couldn't get it all the way. Good purchase, you know. Anyway, we wrap up lunch. We head into town. And at this point, I think my bruising was getting the worst.

I had this crazy purple mark on my arm. And the pain was at its max. And here's where I made a pretty bad decision. Our group decided to split up. Some people went to town for like 30 minutes and to a pharmacy. And then the other people went on a multi-hour tour of a chocolate and coffee plantation. Which one do you think West? Yeah, this is how you know that like my FOMO is at kind of a dangerous stupid level

because I really didn't want to miss out on the chocolate experience. So I said, no, I'll just like grip, you know, I know that nothing is really going to help with this pain aside from like some morphine. So I'll just go on the chocolate tour. I'm going to be in pain regardless. It was a bad idea. It was a bad to see. Yeah, I was having a hard time paying attention just without having an exclusive extreme pain.

Yeah, it was a little slow. And during the tour, I did start to kind of spiral and dissociate a little bit. And I kind of had hoped that the pain would be subsiding by then, but it was just getting worse and worse. And our guide on that tour knew he was like guiding the chocolate and coffee, but he knew a lot about wildlife. Like he was a really, really well-informed guide. And so at one point I pulled him aside and I said, hey, have you ever been stung by a bull-a-and? and he said as a kid that he ended up in the hospital actually with a fever for a week because he was stung by a bullet ant.

And then I showed him my arm and he's like, yep, that's a bulletin. You got stung by a bulliont ant. So I kind of just lost, I got lost in my own world for a little bit. I really sunk into the pain during the tour. I was starting to wonder if I might end up with some of these other side effects and like ruin the trip for people. And then right as I was kind of getting into that mindset, the pain finally started to break. And by the end of the tour, it wasn't too bad.

That night when we all hung out in the hot springs and ate dinner, I really couldn't feel much of anything. And then that night when we laid down to go to sleep, it did kind of come rushing back. But I just kind of gritted my teeth for a few hours, tried to find a comfortable position. And then a few of our group had given me like some nice pain killers and muscle relaxers and stuff. So I took those and then I just kind of passed out. And in the morning I was fine. I had it. It was a little sensitive to the touch, but I was okay.

I was his roommate, and I was like going to bed and he goes, yeah, it's starting to really hurt again. This is like a little scary. Yeah. I was like, oh, shoot. And then I just went to bed. Yeah. I was asleep.

Snores. I, so in retrospect, like we said earlier, it was kind of scary when it happened, but afterward, I was actually really happy that it had happened. It was a fun. a talking point for the trip. And it was like one of those things that you always hear about as a biologist, especially if you've spent a decent amount of time in tropical Latin America.

And then experiencing it, I kind of got a window into how bad it can actually be. And I do think I came out on the lower end of how bad it can be. I know Ian that we talked to that got the scorpion sting, he's been stung by a bullion and he had a similar reaction where it was really bad, but it wasn't like the worst pain of his life, and that's where I was at, too. What was the worst pain of your life? Huh. I got, you know, when I, in college, I played mud volleyball, and someone, I got mud underneath

my contact lens at the time, and a bunch of little tiny, like, shards of glass, essentially from the sand, got lodged into my eyeball, and I was in so much pain. I couldn't take off my contact, and it just kept rubbing him into my eye, and I had to go see emergency optometrist and he pulled 20 little fragments of glass out of my eyeball. Dude, that was the worst pain I've ever felt. Stop. Yeah. Yeah.

Worse than an aunt? Yeah. I got to scare this flicker. Flickers chirping in the background. All you birders can probably hear a northern flicker. A side note is that chocolate from the coffee chocolate tour. The chocolate I made, I think. think might be the worst chocolate I've ever eaten.

Yeah. I was lucky that Andrew was across for me and he's like a chef and has like been a chocolatier before and he, or I guess still is, he looked at me and he said, put in more sugar than you think you should put in like a lot more. And I was like, oh, okay. So mine wasn't bad because I added hell of sugar to it. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking.

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And the two reasons are because of the severity of the pain and how long it lasted. I had pain for about 10 hours, which is about what you should expect from a bullet ant sting. So it was a bullet ant. One bullet ant sting, would you say you're like 2% more of a real man now? Yeah, I feel like I'm, yeah, maybe like 2%. I need the full glove to feel like a real man. But I did find that after that trip, I was like, wow, I've been watching a lot of football lately, you know. Chopping down a lot of trees.

Yeah. Jesse's like, what are all these trees coming from? I don't know. Just wake up at night and go chop down trees. And I'm just kind of an asshole now, too. All right. To me, a real man protects the forest. Yeah, sure.

I mean, do you see train dreams? I guess we won't make that joke. I love train dreams. That guy, he was chopping down trees all over the place. And by the end of the way, would you say he? He's a real man. He's crying a lot. He just, I haven't seen it.

I think to Jeff's point. Yeah. Because real men don't cry, do they? That's, maybe I've been crying a little bit less because of this bulletin. You know, who knows? No, go ahead, men, cry all you want. Yeah. I encourage always be crying is what I.

Yeah. Yeah. ABC. That's kind of my rallying cry these days. Yeah. You know, I don't feel like I need to prove my manliness to anyone, to be honest. Except to Jesse. Not even to her.

All right. I mean, prove is a weird word, but like, there's a lot of people out there that feel like once a month. Once a month. Like one or two nights a month.

Sure. That's not what I'm talking about. All right. Let's get into Bulladant biology a little bit. We talked about them a little bit already, but Bulladant actually isn't their official name. Worldwide, they are known as, Paraponara clavada, which is their scientific name.

But they have a lot of different nicknames. Why don't we just call them that? That's, yeah. It's kind of funny that insects and reptiles, people that work with them a lot, just use scientific names, usually, you know? And it's kind of like, come on, guys, we can use common names for these. Let's not get too serious. Fucking biologists, right?

I hate you guys. I mean, that is like the only thing they go to. school for. Yeah. Learn Latin. The Latin names. In Venezuela, they're often called Hormiga 24. That person that complained about me doing an accent is going to be

pissed about that one. But that means the 24-hour aunt, which refers to pretty much a full day of pain that you can expect after being stung. In Brazil, they're often called Formiga Cabo Verge, Formiguan or Formiguan Prato. Isn't that the, what's the actress in the conjuring movies? Isn't that her last name?

Vera Formiga. Yeah. Is she one of this? Vermiga does mean aunt in Portuguese. What the heck? That's her last name is aunt? Yeah, I guess. I never really thought about that.

Via aunt. That's cool. Formiga. Yeah. Vera, that's yeah. Are we getting that right? I might be having some recency bias here. Vera.

Farmiga. She's Farmiga, not Formiga. shoot. But Formigal pretty much just means like big ant. And then the indigenous Tupiguanini called them Tukanindi, which translates to the one wounding deeply. But their most famous nickname may actually come from Costa Rica, where they're known as Bala, which means bullet. You can find them pretty much from Honduras down to Brazil. They like to inhabit humid tropical lowland forest. Their large reddish black ants, or black. blackish red. They can get up to about an inch in length. They have really large bulbous segments, so they're pretty unmistakable once you get an eye for them. They just look like this really chunky, big black ant. They're social insects that form nests generally at the bottoms of trees, and those nests typically have a few hundred ants in them, the majority of them worker ants, and they sting as both a hunting strategy and defensively. They eat all sorts of critters from

frogs to butterflies to spiders. And they're really defensive. They'll defend their colonies vigorously, and when they're defensive, they actually produce a sound that emanates from their abdomen. And they've been shown to drop down on attackers from trees. Pretty cool. Who does that? That's crazy. In movies. Like Jean-Claude Van Damme probably does that, drops down out of a tree, kicks a guy in the face.

Does he? I don't know. At least once. I bet he does that. They did that in the three ninjas. Oh, cool. Yeah. One of them, Colton, I think maybe.

Colt? Yeah, the cool one. He was always my favorite. And... Middle child. It's kind of a ninja move. Yeah, it is a ninja move. Assassin's Creed, you're always jumping out of trees, stabbing people.

They should call him ninja bugs, ninja ants. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So the venom in their sting is comprised of a Ponera toxin, which is a neurotoxic peptide then inactivates sodium ion channels and skeletal muscle to block synapse transmission. So we talked about this in our Bark Scorpion episode, but basically what this is doing is just it stops your body from telling you to stop feeling pain. So those synapse transmitters, the channels just stay open.

so you're just continuously feeling like the maximum pain response. And that also happens with scorpions. And that's why these stings are so painful is it's tricking your body into just constantly having a huge locked in pain response. And aside from just searing pain, bold ant stings can also produce temporary paralysis, uncontrollable shaking, nausea, vomiting, fever, and cardiac arrhythmia. Okay, so really quickly,

I wanted to invite someone else on that had been stung and immediately our friend Jack from Jack's World of Wildlife came to mind. And again, if you listen to Jeff's King of Sting episode, his first one, I was a little dismissive when I first heard about Jack. You hated him. No, I didn't say I hated it, but I was dismissive. And I, the reason, as I thought he might. You said if there's anyone in the world, you could kill it, be Jack.

He's about to be on the show. I did not say that. Jack, I promise you. But what I did think is that he might be one of these wildlife influencers who just does sting and pain content. But after I looked into his videos, I did recognize that he was actually a kindred spirit, a really amazing educator and naturalist.

And one of the things I like best about Jack is that he is teaching people about animals that they might be really afraid of, like insects, arachnids, lots of other reptiles and creepy crawlies. and he does a really good job of explaining just how beautiful and interesting and complicated these animals can be and why they're almost always much more afraid of us than we are of them. And I really, really like his content. So with no further ado, we're going to bring Jack on.

Naturalists are those guys that are always naked, right? Is he one of those? He's not one of those. I've never seen him do any naked content. Maybe as an only fan so we don't know about. Shoot, signy up. We'll ask him. All right, well, I just introed him, but he is here joining us, Jack Schoenhoff, who is a wildlife educator, but I'll let you explain your background, Jack, just so people know who you are.

Sure. Yep. Like said, my name is Jack Schoenhoff. I run Jack's World of Wildlife, which is me. I post all over the place. I started on YouTube, but I'm everywhere now, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, whatever. Only fans. Yeah, right? My main thing that I pretty much do is I take a not necessarily antithetical approach to wildlife, but I try and take the expectations that people have about misunderstood species. So usually I'm filming stuff like, you know, reptiles, venomous snakes in particular, spiders, the stuff that people have this kind of scary idea built in their heads and try and sort of rein them in back into reality. That's kind of,

the initial sort of conception of my brand, if you want to call it that. Yeah. Which is just kind of, I was seeing when I first started, you had creators like, you know, Coyote Peterson or other people that were kind of capitalizing on the negative sensational capabilities of wildlife. And I'm not somebody who thinks that you have to speak in a monotone voice and provide everything in an academic setting. I do believe that the natural world is sensational and people should.

be able to feel excited and want to connect with it. But at the same time, what I want to do is highlight how cool and interesting and the real side of these animals rather than taking the nastiest components of them and trying to drum that up in order to facilitate getting views. So part of that mission did have me running parallel with creators like Coyote Peterson kind of making almost a rebuttal sting series. And this is something if you've seen any of my videos, you know what I'm about. But if you're looking from the outside, you think I'm just hopping on the bandwagon of sting videos.

That's not what I'm doing. Basically, you have millions of people consuming, aggressively consuming these sting and bite videos because they're really just freaked out and they want to see somebody getting hurt. You take those people who are interested in that kind of thing and you show them, actually, this doesn't want to sting me, it doesn't want to bite me. And even if it does, it's not nearly. as extreme or painful or hand up as some people are kind of pedaling it to be. Because, of course, they make money off of interaction and stuff like that.

It's really fun to, like, watch a coyote Peterson sting and then watch your exact same sting, like, right afterwards. It's like, it's night and day, night and day, because, I mean, I guess so many people are like, man, this guy's so tough. You must have an insane pain tolerance. You should see me pluck my, you know, my unibrow. I'm not some superhuman, you know, Superman made out of. of steel, right? It just hurts. It'll hurt.

And I would probably jump 10 feet in the air if something crawled up my britches and stung me on the tank or something. But if you're fully, you're going three, two, one, it's like if somebody put a gun to your head and said, if you scream, I will shoot and kill you, I believe every single person on earth over eight years old would be able to sit there and just take it. That's an interesting way to put it. And not that I'm trying to put a front on if I'm doing a. sting or something, but if it's not going to physically

make me do anything, I'm not going to do that. You know, there's no point. See, I imagine, like, once the video ends, that's when you really start screaming. Right, right? When it comes on, okay, okay. Hold it in. That hurts so bad.

But, honestly, yeah. I like what you said, and, like, I, we pick on them sometimes, but I do think there, like, was a place for all of that. I think it's interesting, and it, It's a, it's like a kind of opening to educate people with the sting stuff and whatnot. But it's run its course for me, you know?

And I think the thing that you said that I agree with is like, often these invertebrates or whatever else, they really don't want to sting us. It's energetically costly. It is like their last line of defense. It's not something that they want to do. But if you force them to do it, they will do it. Of course. Yeah. And I did want to ask you about Bolodance. specifically. I don't know. I didn't see my aunt when I got stung. I saw it in the water afterward,

but I was confident it was a bold ant because it lasted as long as it did and as painful as it did. Yours, you had to force it to sting you. Correct. I saw the video and I'm just curious if you could run us through your experience, tell us, you know, where you were, how it felt, how long it lasted the whole thing. Yeah, absolutely. So I've actually been stung two separate times intentionally. So when I first started the channel, way back in 2018, I was living in Costa Rica working an internship. And at the end of that internship, we traveled down into the humid lowlands because we were up in the mountains. We traveled down into the human lowlands. And I was like, I got to try a bullet ant, which is, you know, some people are like, that's crazy.

Right. But it's funny because actually before all this sting stuff was kind of taken off, I actually have a huge, special interest in ants. I got into it kind of later in high school. I was breeding them. I was selling them. I was just really fascinated by ants. And part of what made them really interesting, and one of my favorite groups is called the Tried Ponorini. And this will come into play later. So these are typically painfully stinging ants. We have a few really cool species in Texas, but this group includes like hairy panther ants, trapjaw ants, stuff like that. They're usually active foraging ants with a powerful sting. And they're

queens are semi-claustral, which means they have to hunt for prey even while they're founding the nest. There's bigger ant queen species that they just will burrow into the ground and they'll just use all their energy stores to lay eggs. And then once their workers emerge, then they have somebody to go out and get food. These Ponorini and Paraponorini, which includes the bullet ants, can't do that. So that's why a lot of these groups of ants are equipped with those painful stings. So of course, I was interested in that. I just started testing them just out of curiosity. I'm not allergic to any bees or anything like that. So me and some buddies, it was a trip. Way back in 2017, it was one of my first kind of road trips with my buddies. And we went all the way down to

South Texas and we caught our largest native Ponorini tribe ant, which is a hairy Panther ant down to South Texas. And I was like, I should try it out. You guys, do you think I'll be able to drive afterwards? I was just, I was driving my car. I don't know. And I tried it. It was interesting. It was kind of cool. So it started to become a little bit of a thing I would try out, do. And So that's another reason why I felt like I wanted to start these sting videos because I had the personal sort of reference for like, this is ridiculous. I can't believe that people aren't just seeing right through some of these insane sort of, you know, Oscar award winning, you know, performances. So anyway, to tie that back in. So back to 2018, I had tried a tarantle hawk wasp, which I was a little nervous for as my first big sting.

I don't know what was going on. Or level fours. Yeah. Yeah, it was almost entirely painless. Wow. I had a little bit of kind of inflammation right at the bite site, like the next, the following day. But I was like, this is shocking. Maybe I don't know what was going on, but almost no pain whatsoever.

And so, yeah, for the bullet ant, we'd gone down to get into the humid lowlands. We were in Bulletant Central. We found this amazing Airbnb, which is sadly closed now. It was on this two-acre plot in the middle of all these cattle pastures. and there was like 10 bullet ant colonies. And it was right after a good nuptial flight. So we even had big honking queens. The queens, because they're semi-claustral,

are not multiple times larger than the workers. They're only about 25-ish percent bigger than the workers. But anyway, so I was like, okay, we have some bullet ants. We can try out the sting. So again, bullet ants, I find them to be fairly shy. They, unless you catch them at the base of the tree physically in their nests, they're actually kind of difficult to get into a sort of a defensive mode. If you can kind of almost scoop one off of a leaf or a log or something like that

without really having to worry about being stung. It's usually if one of them gets in your clothes, I've had friends lean on a fence post or a tree or something that the bullet ants that they don't see that they're on and they get stung that way. For me, I've never been stung unintentionally by a bullet ant. So anyway, we caught these bullet ants to film. I took the, you know, female worker, and yeah, I had to pin, pin against the skin, gently, of course, and the stingers are quite large. The genus Paraponera, there's two described species. Only one of them is extant living today.

They're kind of a primitive group of ants. And their tribe, Paraponera, Paraponarini, excuse me, is for more or less a monotific tribe. now today. Uh, so they're similar to those Ponora, if you remember me mentioning those before, which are kind of primitive, active foraging, usually painfully stinging ants. So they're equipped with a pretty potent neurotoxin. That's not terribly dangerous, but they're larger ants, you know, they're around an inch long, usually about 0.7 to 1.2-ish inches. Um, we ran through some of the biology to, okay, okay.

I'll just, you don't have to get too deep into it. So we have, we've talked about most of this. Yeah, yeah. Because I could talk for a long time about bull. It's fine. There's some of my, I think I've got one on my shirt, actually. Somewhere, right here. Oh, yeah.

On the logo. So, so yeah, I had to pin it to the skin. The Stinger actually got stuck. And so I just let it go. My first Bullionette Sting video that I released way back in 2018. The bullet ant was lodged in my arm for maybe 30, 40 seconds if memory serves. No, I remember that. And I just kind of let it stay.

I didn't want to yank on her. You know, sometimes with stinging insects, you know, you can cause some damage if they don't pull themselves out, you know, like a drastic example would be like honey bees. You know, they can actually lose organs if they have their stinger get stuck. Anyway, so I just kind of let it go. And you can see my hand kind of, you know, I'm tensed up a little bit and it's hurting. But what a lot of people don't realize with stinging insects is I find that they, you know, there's the Justin Schmidt pain index of, you know, kind of one to four. Yeah.

In my opinion, most stuff exists in this tiny little sliver of the pie. Because for me, being stung by a bullet ant, the initial pain, I should say, I should clarify, the initial pain exists in this tiniest spectrum. Because you could have a really bad hornet or wasp sting that's on this end. But then, you know, a standard yellow jacket or paper wasp is going to still be fairly close to that. And in my experience, a bullet ant, is the initial pain is extremely similar to any paper wasp or bee sting or anything like you think you hear hold a bulletin you're going to be riding on the ground it's 24 hours of pain and while

the effects certainly last longer and for me than you know a paper wasp or something like that the initial instance of that pain is is you know maybe within one or two clicks of a sting that most people have experienced before that's interesting I agree and I think I think a lot of people kind of again, they inflate this idea of, well, tarantula hawk and velvet ant and Asian giant hornet, they're four out of four or whatever. And they think it's going to be some, you know, monumental, painful experience. And in reality, it's like, oh, like, it would certainly surprise you. And I can't imagine, you know, accidentally sitting in a nest of them. But just one, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, being stung because you got to think, too,

you know, there are kids who do this in the Amazon where they, and they have, it's not just a one-time thing. This is, this is 20, 30, 40 ritualistic, you know, bulletin-ant gloves that they have to do over the course of months or even years. And they're not, they're not riding on the ground. It's, I can imagine a horrible hangover because that neurotoxin, I mean, you would just be laid out for days. Because again, it's not just a potent, nasty neurotoxin that is incredibly painful, but the volume that these ants can store. I mean, they're, they're big honking ants. And so, you know, you're thinking of... I want to get you to, like, do the bullet ant gloves and then afterwards just be like... Compare it. Yeah, guys, it's not that bad.

Not that bad. See, my... I had a gun to my head. Exactly. I wouldn't scream. I would actually, I have a buddy of mine who went and did that a few years ago, again, to kind of crap on Coyote Peterson. But I would be really interested to try it. My only reservation is the aftermath because I know the initial pain of the moment. You can stick it out. Oh, how long am I doing it for? 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever.

Like, it's good. Right. It's that come down. The shaking. Yeah, exactly. And that specific tribe to get to, it's like a three or four hour boat ride there. Yeah. So the aftermath of that is you get to lay down in the boat.

and just have neurotoxin shakes for the next, you know, 48, 72 hours or however long. And my thought of how that would feel would be similar to, I did actually, again, I went a little to the extreme. And I tested a Black Widow bite. This was in 2019. So, yeah, I know I have some like end questions for you, and I want to talk about that. Fully systemic neurotoxin kind of stuff. Like, it's not going to kill me, but it's going to be some of the worst. worst because my thing is I would rather take pain more extreme for 15 minute 30 minute window

than kind of a lower simmering seven or eight or nine out of 10 for 11 12 hours no no no rest so tell us tell us then like you know the initial sting wasn't that bad for you but tell us about how it progressed over the next few hours so my I'm gonna so the initial pain because I'm going to talk about both my stings because I had a more recent sting back in 2023 in Ecuador. So I was going to, you know, I'm in a different country. This is a different population of Bulletin, same species. I tested in Costa Rica in Ecuador.

So for Costa Rica, my reaction was kind of more intense, I would say. So afterwards, I kind of had some pretty serious inflammation. I usually used my left arm for my sting, so I'm just kind of illustrating here. About maybe seven inches long and kind of maybe. two inches sort of wide and it was just really sore the initial sort of you know hot needle was completely gone after the first 20 30 minutes of the sting and it was kind of left with a sort of a shallow aching in my arm also additionally interesting is and this has this happened with my second bite as well kind of profuse localized sweating in that area so rest of my body completely fine but it you know

warm to the touch and just beads of sweat that would come off In fact, my more recent test, I took a pretty dramatic nuts. I'm in Ecuador. It's humid and it's hot. But you can just see everywhere else my arm is dry and I just have sweat just dripping off of this inflamed area the next day. Interesting. You know, some people call it the 24 hour ant. For me, it didn't last nearly that long. I got stung in the morning, maybe about 10 or 11 a.m. That night, it was pretty sore. But, you know, it was, it was to the point where it was a little annoying how sore it was. It was made. maybe, you know, a six, you know, out of ten or something like that, of just kind of an aching, like you just feel like you slammed your arm in a car door sort of thing. By the next morning, it was almost entirely gone, with the exception of like, you know, if you have like a mosquito bite, you ignore it and it kind of goes away, but if you brush up against something, you know, it starts to get itchy and inflamed again, that type of thing.

So, yeah, you'd be like, oh, it doesn't hurt or itch or whatever anymore, but, you know, you brush up against it, then it, you know, starts to get a little puffy and inflamed. But really after about 24 hours, 36 hours somewhere in there, it was pretty much almost entirely gone. For my second test, it was, I think actually maybe a little bit longer. Now, I had a little bit of a head cold at the time. Maybe that played a little bit into the immune response and stuff. But it was very dramatic, localized sweating. It was more extreme that I recall, you know, way back, you know, seven years ago, eight years ago almost now.

gosh, that first bullet ant sting. But both instances still perfectly easy to remain composed. It's a painful thing, but, you know, I think too, I've said that, you know, those stings sort of exist on a spectrum of pain. You know, breaking a, you know, I've never broken a bone, but I've twisted an ankle. Have you been shot? I've never been shot. That's the other thing, too, I'll talk about. Because people, again, they're like, oh, yeah, some people say it's as painful as being shot. I cannot imagine that it would be as painful as being shot. Number one, just because it's like a bee or a wasp. Nobody says, oh, I got stung by a wasp,

and in 10 minutes the pain goes away and you're just left with a big swollen ear or something like that. Yeah. It must be as painful as a bullet. But also, at the same time, I feel people kind of, again, they inflate this idea of pain in their heads. Most people, if you shoot them with a gun, your body will go into shock.

A lot of the times, if you have a serious enough injury, you're not really going to even be feeling it that much. You know, people go, oh, well, you know, they would be driven mad with the pain or whatever, you know. And it's like at some point, you either go into shock, you pass out, like this, whatever people think is going to happen away up here, you know, you're way down here. You know, people like, even with my bite, it was terrible. I saw the video of Donald Trump getting shot.

And I feel like he would have been in more pain if he got to. Stung by a beat. Exactly. Exactly what I'm saying, right? But I do think it's important to say, like, I agree with you because I had a similar reaction. Venom is very complicated. Yeah. And so is pain and pain responses and our synapses and all of that.

And just, you know, this is just kind of a disclaimer. Just because me and you didn't have like the strongest reaction to it, there are people out there that will have a more strong, you know, a stronger pain reaction and venom is just going to affect me differently, even outside of like an allergy or something. Sure. And I agree, I agree in sort of half with that statement.

I think that people react to pain in very different ways. I am skeptical that pain exists on as broad a spectrum as reaction, if that makes sense. So what I think is, like I said, again, I could be stung by a bullet ant, preparing myself kind of almost mind over matter my reaction is going to be very different than if

I sit on one and I'm completely not expecting it like the surprise element sometimes you don't know what's happening you don't know if it's going to happen again I feel a lot of people sort of don't you know and I think this is something too sort of almost an evolutionary thing that's built in at a younger age a a violent reaction to sort of a pain response can be helpful in notifying you know family members people who are around, something is going on, you don't know what's happening. It's a, it's a natural response for people to have, especially you can see in young kids, you know, a bong on the head or something that we could just be like, oh man, that stings, is more of a violent reaction in a younger kid. I feel like a lot of people, without having sort of the exposure

that I've had of just being stung over and over again and kind of having the, you know, conceptual idea of about what each of these things is going to feel like, a lot of people would react violently, maybe without experiencing, you know, pain on a 300% increase scale to myself. What you're saying is that Schmidt is a bit of a drama queen, is what you're trying to tell us. It's possible that Schmidt is a bit of a drama queen. I have tried, I've really tried hard to give everyone as best of a benefit of a doubt as I can. For example, I did a Velvet Ant Sting, my first one, you know, years and years and years ago. It was nothing. I retried it. Years later, and I guess I had a dud the first time, because the second time, it was actually extremely sharp and impressively painful.

In my opinion, that's the most painful sting insect in the United States is the larger dazzy mutilla, you know, velvet ants. And so I've tried Transyl Hawk Wasp three times now. I don't know where I'm going wrong. It is just, I've heard people say, oh, I had one fly up my shorts, and it was so bad. I'm like, it is almost unreadable for me. And I don't know. For me, again, conceptually, it makes more sense for a paralytic venom of a solitary wasp that can fly away to not be the most painful thing. It's specifically designed to paralyze prey, not necessarily to be used in defense.

They've got bright colors. They can fly away. Different than a velvet ant who has bright colors, but is terrestrial. And so it would benefit from having, you know, maybe a painful sting. It sounds like you need to try one up your shorts. Right? That might be the next. I guess it's the drama queen.

I've done so much. I've done so much. I've tried to have stuff steamy on the lips or or. I'll show you my. So there's my well. Yeah. It was like a pretty solid well that I got actually. Yeah, it looks pretty good.

And again, I think that was just because it was a fleshy part. But I don't know. Hearing all this makes me think you just need to try like recreational drugs or you need some other way to get like I look at. Yeah. I think Wes needs to try more stings instead of doing drugs all the time. Right. Yeah.

I'm somewhere, I think my reaction was somewhere in between yours and like a coyote or Schmidt or whatever. Like, it really hurt. It was definitely the worst thing I've ever experienced. But it wasn't like I didn't, you know, lose my mind. Sure. Sure. The hospital or anything. Exactly.

And I think, too, again, you were surprised with that sting as well. I think surprise plays, I would say. at least 50% of, you know. When I didn't know what had gotten it, I thought it could be like an eyelash viper or, you know, I had no idea. I couldn't even see the sting for a good part of it. Yeah. But for the sake of time, I know Jeff has some questions for you.

Yeah. Go forth. He wants to ask you outside of the Bulletin even. I started watching your videos a few years ago and is, I've seen the growth. So, congratulations on that. I appreciate it. And I think you deserve it. So with the Schmidt Index, like we, we heard you say that.

that you would narrow it down to like a real narrow piece of the pie. But just going from his index, what would be your biggest change that you would make to it? I think that Schmidt didn't go far enough east to make a complete list, in my opinion. I've not yet taken a sting from Vespa Mandarinia Japonica, the Japanese giant Hornet, but I took a sting from a very close relative Vespa Tropica very early on in my YouTube career. Does I have a more common name? The Greater Banded Hornet. Okay.

It's the same genus, Vespa. Vespa Tropica is the binomial. But it's a pretty significantly, it's about maybe 1.7 to 2-inch hornet, big sucker. And the volume of the venom is impressive as well. That thing hurt like nobody's business. And that is one of the only instances I can think of where audibly I kind of yelled a small yell, but that was involuntary. I was like, oh, oh, wow.

Yeah, yeah. It really sucks. And my arm was blimped up for a week. Again, that's that volume of venom plays a big role in that kind of. So would that be the worst sting you've taken? That's the worst wasp or hornet or ant sting I've taken, absolutely. But I have a feeling that the larger, you know, Asian giant or Japanese giant hornet would be a step up from that again.

Is that the murder hornet? The murder hornets, yeah. I do think that just based off of size alone, similar venom composition, similar everything else, you're just getting more venom, bigger stinger, everything. I think that you'd have to be crazy to not have that be at the top of the list because if you're thinking the largest hornet in the world,

now I can't say that emphatically, but from my experience with the greater banded hornet, you know, executioner wasp and bullet ant, and tarantial hawk. They're just little guys, you know, painful stings, but akin to a paper wasp or something like that, Vespotropica,

these big Asian hornets, these are in a different league because they're just, just the size alone elevates them. You know, because even the, you're the voice I trust most with this, so that's my new number one.

I appreciate, yeah, that's what I would say. And I would say that if Schmidt's pain and decks is at four, I would say that Vespotropica, Asian giant hornet, you know, speculatively would be somewhere in that five to six range in my opinion.

More dramatic initially, you know, longer, more, you know, sort of... They kill people too. Exactly. And that's the thing, too. Just a handful of stings, again, from that volume perspective,

you think how many bee stings does it take to kill a person? You have something with, you know, a venom tank about the size of a honeybee, you know, so you're talking about a lot of venom, you know, just a handful of those giant hornets. You know, if you got swarmed by a nest, you're done 10 15 stings i don't i mean you'd be in critical condition it's a lot of venom

that's like two zip liners that just got killed by giant hornets it is it's no joke you know um yeah a single isolated sting is one thing a colony of really any of these on this list you know luckily you know velvet ant and tarantil hawksopauseper solitary but a colony of bullet ants would be nasty a colony of executioner wasps of asian giant hornets you know don't underestimate you know power of numbers. Strengthen numbers. Yeah. All right.

Next question for you. So does Coyote Peterson follow you? Or has he ever, like, had any interaction? So, funny enough, actually, Mario Aldacoa, who is the biologist for Brave Wilderness, who has actually left the project now. He actually just started following me on Instagram. So we chatted a little bit. Coyote does not follow me.

And I wouldn't expect him to because I've spent, I was a lot more sort of antagonistic at the beginning. For me, I kind of don't have, I don't hold bad blood for people. I don't really have like professional beef like that. It's just kind of a more of a playful thing for me of like, don't act like an idiot online if you think nobody else is going to come along and say, see how much it's going to act like an idiot. I have some friends who actually worked over at Brave Wilderness. I know he's aware of my stuff. He's seen something of it. I'm sure people have sent it to him. He's aware of it. In my opinion, I kind of, honestly, I really kind of come out of the bite and sting stuff.

I do them every once in a while still just, again, out of curiosity, because I genuinely am interested in the effects. And also, I do like to kind of show to people that it's not nearly as bad as you would think. But it's not really a sort of a pinnacle element of my content anymore, because it's sort of kind of in the past. But that's really only when he comes up. For me, I think, for the most part, I've kind of just made my piece with it.

He makes content for younger kids. And I'm sure I consumed stuff that was inaccurate or hammed up or whatever. And then I grew to kind of be able to pick through and find out what was reliable information and good. And I think that I think it's a net positive getting kids interested in anything. I wish that the animals, you know, get a better net positive. Conservation. Yeah. I think it's a little bit of bad press for the animals, but by and large, it gets people interested in stuff.

And, you know, it's the same sort of, you know, comments I could have about him, I could. have about, you know, random Netflix documentaries that are all about, you know, ham and stuff up and doing whatever. It's just, it is what it is. We all grew up with, with, um, Steve Irwin. Steve Irwin, you know, the most extreme. Yeah. Like the, the, the thing about Steve is, there was this element of danger and he got bit a lot and, and, you know, and that didn't necessarily need to happen. Sure. But it did bring us into that world. Yeah. So I do think there's a place for it. Yeah. And again, like I, like I mentioned, you know, before, I'm, I'm, again, I'm not, a purist in the sense of, you know, removing how sensational the natural world is for people.

Because I think it's a powerful element and it gets people excited and connected to it without it, you know, sort of taking, fully taking the reins and just being all about what's the craziest, most extreme stuff that you can show somebody. But I do think that there's some people who kind of are trying to maneuver through sort of psychom, the psychom world of trying to teach people and get them interested about stuff. And because they, don't want to seem akin to the, you know, the real Tarzans and Coyote Peterson's of the world. They, they rein it in so much that it just doesn't get to people. Because the fact of the matter is we're in competition to get to people and teach them about stuff,

which is another reason. Because a lot of people were critical of me for coming in behind. And I feel doing a tasteful job, sort of dispelling these sting videos by creating what these people were consuming and getting them to change their mind. These diehard coyote fans and realizing, oh, this is just ridiculous. I can't tell you how many comments I've read, you know, that are diametrically a book on a coyote video, oh, thanks for let me know. I'm going to kill every single one of these that I see. I would hate for this to get my kid or my dog or me or whatever versus, oh, my gosh, you know,

I didn't realize that they just wanted nothing to do. I'll sweep it outside with a broom or cup it and throw it out into the yard. I mean, for me, it's like it's more fighting to get good press on animals so that people care. Because at the end of the day, it's easy for, you know, Nat Geo photographers and some of these other animal creators to snap a cute picture of a baby whale or a bear or something like that. But in reality, our bugs are, you know, lower trophic levels of the ecosystem. These are the things that keep everything running. And if you don't care about bugs, if you just, everything is disgusting and, you know, ends up a sticky gooey blob on the bottom of your shoe, you know, you're missing the plot a little bit. Yeah.

No, I just asked because we roasted him a couple times and then we noticed him follow our Instagram account. So I was just curious. Yeah, I think I'm too far. I'm too far in. You roasted more than a couple times. All right. So I want to talk about the Black Widow video of your videos I watched. I think that was the one.

I want to say, that's the one where you miscalculated the most and you took it very nonchalant. you were very joky and like, oh, these don't actually, like, people act like these are a big deal. They're not a big deal. And, like, I was really interested because my whole life, I was like, black widows are a big deal. If you get, like, bit by a black widow, like, when I was a kid, I was like, you're done. Like, you're dead. For sure. And so you still proved me wrong in that sense. You're still here. Yeah. But you did, like, to your point as well, like, it really did not want to bite you at all in that video and you really had to like get it aggravated enough to bite you but that aftermath was pretty bad yeah so yeah with that test so that was back

uh i think i did that i filmed that in july of 2019 so this is a long time ago um but yeah there was there was a few things at play to basically make that perfect storm so i intentionally selected it's an adult Southern Black Widow, but it had not had a recent meal. And I did that intentionally because when they feed, you know, that abdomen swells up, you know, multiple times. And it becomes very fragile. And again, out of concern for the welfare of the animal, I didn't want to pin a fully, you know, inflated, we'll say, Black Widow, for risk of damaging it. Because at the end of the day, no video for me is worth, you know, terminally injuring, you know, an animal. So I picked this one to, that was going to be the easiest way for me to pin the spider without it, you know, getting hurt.

But what had happened was because I'm thinking, oh, you know, it hasn't eaten in a while, maybe it's, you know, kind of running a little closer to empty. Black Widows, even when aggravated, rarely will defensively bite. And if they do, it's almost always a defensive bite through and through, a pinch and release. Now, this is enough to cause a four or five hour painful experience. And that's what I was expecting. you can feel that you can kind of see it in the video if you go back and watch that classic video I feel oh oh is that a pinch and then I continue to hold it on there and I wiggle it a little bit more

and then it goes from I'm just trying to bite to hopefully be let go to I'm the spider I'm talking to the spider's point of view I'm about to be eaten or crushed or whatever I've got it this is my final claw you know to survive then you get a venom dump and usually people don't realize that, you know, venomous animals are fairly conservative with their venom. You know, they, it's not just for, I mean, there's very few animals that purely have defensive venom and even then still don't like to use all of it in one go. You know, you want to be able to, what if something else comes along 15 minutes later, I need to be able to defend myself. Most of these animals, they're using venom to not just procure food, but digest it. And so you rarely get that crazy venom dump.

But again, I kind of was like, well, It's smaller. It hasn't eaten in a while. I really want a proper test. I really want a good test to make sure that I have, you know, enough venom in my system to really feel it. So in my opinion, that's what happened basically with that bite is a miscalculation. Again, I wasn't in, you know, terminal danger. I wasn't going to die or anything, but it did prolong the effects by about two to three times what they would have been. Because I had a buddy of mine who had been, who had taken a few accidental bites here and there,

pulling egg sacks from, you know, a widow or whatever. And it's kind of like a mild flu body egg. Just pulling eggsacks up of black windows. Oh, typical. Pull an egg sack out.

You know, oh, she didn't like that. She's going to bite you on the finger. And so, yeah, that was a miscalculation, which I mentioned in the video. You ended up in the hospital for that one, right?

Like you were in the, oh, I thought when you, you were like in a bathtub and then you're like, I just need some help. No, I was that, no, I didn't end up going anywhere because at the end of the day, I had taken some, which was a stupid idea. I took ibuprofen, which would not help. Again, it's a neurotoxin, so it kind of bonds to the neurotransmitters. You have to have actual physical pain medication to really combat it.

But I had taken ibuprofen and maybe a benadryl or something. And so I was kind of like, I was already putting my kidneys through a lot with the venom. And so if I had gone to an emergency care for really only and truly pain management, I was kind of at a sort of an unsafe sort of level I felt I didn't want to put my kidneys through all that and then waste the money anyway. So I was like, well, there's not really anything I could do because I kind of flubbed and took medicine. I shouldn't have taken and I felt like it was too much of a thing. So I ended up having a buddy of mine had like, you know, hush, hush, wink, wink, like some dog pain medication or something from like his dog went to the vet. I ended up taking that like the morning after this whole event. So I stayed up pretty much the entire night and I only slept for like six hours after I had taken like dog pain medication afterwards.

It was brutal. It was brutal. And then for like a week or two afterward, which didn't really make it into the video because I was trying to put the video out quickly. I was just like, I was sick. My arm was like the bullet ant kind of aching feeling, but like unbelievable. Like I had to get liquid bandage. pain reliever band-aid stuff. I had to put it on every few hours when it started to wear off. And the worst part is, like, a few days after I did that bite test, me and my girlfriend at the time

were driving down to Glenrose. It's a short drive from where I live. It's about an hour and a half, hour, 45. Popped a tire. And I was already like, you know, just driving down so weak. And I had to get out, I could not change the tire. Luckily, there was a guy like mowing lawns at one of the places that I pulled into. And he came over and helped me. And I was like, Thank you, man, because I was just like my, I just looked like, you know, a, you know, Wednesday character. Like, part of the Adam's family or something. You let another man change your tire in front of your girlfriend. Oh, I was like, I could not. That's why that relationship ended.

It was literally heat of the summer, too. So it was like a hundred plus degrees on black assfall. And I was just like, I'm going to die out here. We've all been there. We've all been there coming down from Black Widow Venom. Yeah. I did, though. I learned they're not as dangerous as I always thought. And then I've only done one other widow test after that.

I did a brown widow test years after. And I learned from my mistake. I just let a little pinch and release a defensive bite because that's going to be the standard that you're usually going to get. And it was no problem at all. Yeah. I did want to just ask before we go to, like, a favorite animal that, favorite like insect type animal that people might not know about yeah yeah hmm well i'll say this

one because i'm about to head to thailand one of my favorite groups are the trilobite beetles they look so stinking cool and they're so mysterious and everything um i had a buddy of mine just send me a video of what looks like a trilobite beetle feeding on slime mold which would be pretty cool we just kind of assume that they fed on fungus and whatever maybe slime molds on, you know, logs and stuff like that, but very hard to tell really what they're eating. But they are just such fascinating beetles and just the sexual dimorphism,

the prehistoric armor plating. They just look so cool. So I'm stoked to see those, and I think that that's a great one that a lot of people do know about, but a lot of people, it's the most alien-looking thing. Yeah, I didn't know that. And I like Beatles. Yeah.

Nice. Cool. Well, I hope you see some eating some slime. I hope so, too. Thanks, Jack. Yeah, not a problem. It's good chat with you guys. We really appreciate it.

Yeah. I had fun. All right. That was great. Thank you, Jack. Mike is joining us again for the categories. Thanks for allowing me. Before we get into categories. So you guys have any questions before we get into categories? Is your arm okay? My arm's okay. Yeah? It's fine.

In fact, I've been doing Mike's workout routine. It's getting stronger. So next time the ant's sting is just going to like bend and break when it tries to sting. me. All right. So our first category, I wanted to ask you guys since we all three watched the show, I think you watched it, Mike, your favorite moment from Wild Boys. Mike, you opened your mouth all dumb, but then no sound came out. It was real dumb of me to do that.

I'll go for it. I'll go first while you guys are thinking. Watch noise come out of my mouth this time when I open it. So we prefaced at the very beginning of this episode, we did say how not all of the segments of the show had aged. all that well. And I remembered one part that I thought I really liked and thought it was super funny when Chris and Stivo were eating bugs off of like a streetside food stand. And basically they were just like making a mockery of like a totally normal food item for people. I think it was over

in Thailand. And just right in front of them just vomiting up all these bugs that they were eating and calling the food just like a crap stand and all this stuff. And I was just sitting there thinking like, man, this was so funny to me 20 years ago. And now I just can't really see it as anything other than, and I'm not trying to be like a weird white night or whatever. But like, it's just a funny moment where you look back on something that you thought was so good and so funny and just didn't age that well. So I went with the chameleon dancing. Because you guys, this is like a little 20 second bit where the chameleon was doing like a little rave breakdance with Chris in the background. Yeah. I like that. And that was

harmless one for sure yeah Jeff do you have an answer yeah um in the moment is definitely where they wore the two-piece zebra suit and they ran around with some lions and the lions like jumped on their suit I'm gonna ruin that one for you yeah well I'm gonna ruin it for you first okay I did just recently learn though that that happened in like L.A. or something it was like some people owned lions in California and they just went and did it So like, still like kind of, but I don't know, it doesn't get to be my favorite anymore. Same with the hammock with the meat. Oh, really?

Yeah, there's also those train lions. My new favorite is when Steveo does a puppet show for some rock pythons. And he like does a puppet show for this wild python. And it just keeps biting him on the hand as he's trying to do a puppet show. And then he, like, tattoos it. it right after. Yeah, I like that one. My favorite, when I first watched it, is also probably one that's like now unethical.

But it was in their Indonesia episode and they are just in their hotel room and an orangutan comes in and just thrashes it and just goes crazy. And I don't know how they got that. Chaos. But it's so wild. But honestly, like one of my favorite segments was another Indonesia clip. where they just have these, like, traditional whips in front of these, like, weird Indonesian longhouses, and they're just whipping each other to see who can get the strongest welt.

And it gets pretty out of control how badly they're whipping each other. And I always just, it felt just like a classic jackass sketch to me. But there's so many funny moments from it. There's one where Knoxville is there with them, and they put, like, a little cookie on a rattlesnake. Yeah. And they're like trying to get him to like grab the cookie. And it could be Pontius that's doing it actually. It's Pontius.

Yeah. Yeah. So then he keeps getting scared and the snake like keeps looking at him. And then he's like, I really want that cookie. And I just thought that. It's like so funny that he's still like acting like he just wants to eat the cookie. Yeah. And then they convince Knoxville that he actually got bit by the snake and they go to the hospital and stuff.

But it's all just a prank on Knoxville. really a funny one. Yeah. All right. And then I also- That was Knoxville though. Knoxville tricked Pony. Oh, are you? Yeah, I think you're right. They brought like a cobra and he was like pretending. That's it. Yeah. Okay. I also just wanted to do your favorite at large jackass moment from the entire run of the show and movies if you have like a favorite moment or skit. I like the buffalo roller blading. Oh yeah, that's a good one. He's just like playing a song about you can't rollerblade with Buffalo. Roller skate. Yeah. And then they release a bison and it just freaking wrecks an oxa. Who's the guy that sings that song?

It's the same guy that did King of the Road. Shoot, I can't remember his name. Yeah. Anyway, that's a great one. Morgan Wallin. No. It's not Morgan Wallen. Roger Miller.

Yeah. Mike, what did you pick? I went with, it was, uh, I think the 2010 jackass movie. I forget which one it was. 3D. But it was the electric avenue where, and I just, I love the skits where like Aaron and just every everybody just like when they get legitimately scared, like they don't want to do something.

Those always end up being my favorite ones. But yeah. Um, seeing Bam just bouncing through that hallway like a pinball, just getting tased over and over again. and finally like flipping over the final hurdle is just so funny. And then like it's like the most legitimately angry I ever saw him get. And it was, I don't know, just something about that. When seeing Bam get so mad at how bad something hurt.

And he was just like slamming the wall on stuff. It was great. It's my favorite. I think my, I have two that I wanted to bring up. But Dave England was always the one that I thought was like the funniest reactions to getting hurt. And there's a really simple one where he rings a doorbell and this huge exploding like bag goes off in his face and knocks him down and like an airbag bag almost and he is

just so out of it afterward and it's just like what what you huh and it's just it cracks me up every single time and then the other one that I really like is in 3D as well jackass 3d and it's where they have the jet engine and they're just chucking stuff into the stream and like hitting people with shoes and tomatoes and stuff amazing I could I could have watched that for like three hours, just that segment. So I don't know. When it hits, that show is just so good. Okay.

Your favorite pop culture ant. I don't know if we've done this one before, but we're doing it again if we have. Yeah, I'm going with Flick from Bug's Life. That's what I picked too. He's an inventor. But also he gets all the other ants to stick up to their oppressors, you know, lots of ants together. Yeah. That's a good message.

Yeah. Yeah, he's based. Wasn't that, wasn't it Kevin Spacey, the voice of the bad guy? That's extra based. Is he? Is he? Standing up to that guy? Really?

I don't know. Maybe that was ants. I'm forgetting. I get those mixed up a little bit every once in a while. Okay. But still, that's cool. Yeah. Like a labor organizer, you know, just like knows that together were a lot stronger than we think

we are. I love Flick. Yeah. That was my answer to you. I can't believe I didn't even think of him. I'm going with. I should chose his hot girlfriend, honestly. It was Kevin.

that's what's me see. Maybe that's who I should pick. The hot ant. What's the what's her name, Wes? Well, now that you're on the IMDB page. Let me see. I mean pick it. Pull it. I'm actually, I'm going with the the huge ants from them. It's like a 19, old 1950s is just a creature feature. Man, the noise they make, the huge screech. And there's this old guy. I'll always remember. My dad always called me out whenever this movie was on. But the guy was like, shoot the antenna. And then they shoot one of the antenna. And he's like, shoot the other antenna. Shoot the other antenna. And then they shoot that one off. And it's like, they need those antenna or something really stupid.

It's like, and it just roars. Oh, it's so great. I love that movie. Julia Louis Dreyfis was the hot ant's voice. So there you go. Yeah, I think. All right. Next category is just a simple one, something you recommend this week.

Oh, man. I'm going to go first just to get this one over with. I'm going to suggest people watch the anime Arakawa Under the Bridge. It's by Studio Shaft. If anyone, people who know, no, what that entails. The head tilts, the weird close-ups on eyeballs, just like absurd off-the-wall humor. But below all of that joking around, goofing off, it's a really interesting study in wealth and inequality and where true satisfaction, happiness in life comes from. It's about this guy who, the rich air to a.

company. He's kind of like the literal poster boy for perfection. And then he meets a bunch of rag-tag people living under the bridge, like kind of the homeless subculture of Japan, I guess, is what it represents. And they just show him like how much more there is to life than amassing wealth. And like how no one really ever truly gets through the conceit of the show is that he never wants to ever be in debt to anybody. But the folly of that line of thinking is that just as a person, as a human being, we are all reliant. on each other for, you know, happiness and success and fulfillment. So great, great show.

It is so funny and so fun. Jeff, what do you got to recommend for us? I'm going to go, well, first, Montana Grizz football. They're going to play the Cats this Saturday, Montana versus Montana State, Brawl the Wild. It's the first time these two teams have ever played in the playoff, and it's to make it to the championship game. and they're both the only two highly ranked teams left in the tournament. So it kind of feels like the championship game. So that's just going to be really exciting.

And also I want to shout out the 50 cent documentary on P Diddy. I watched it. Because I thought it was really good. You know me. I've been pretty susceptible to a lot of different. theories out there and I think Diddy killed Tupac. So I agree. That was interesting to hear it laid out.

Like he didn't do it, but I think he like wanted pulling the strings. I think because he wanted Tupac dead. Tupac died. And I think the first time Tupac got shot, like he thought Diddy did it. And there's a lot of reason to think that, you know? Yeah. So yeah, I think it's been funny seeing all the, like, no one holds a grudge, like, 50 cent type stuff.

And it's like, like, it's kind of true, but also no one gets, like, death threats, like 50 cent either. Like, he has more of a vendetta almost than anything, I think, like, and he's really coming through on it. There's a really funny one where, like, after the documentary came out, did he sent 50 cent some flowers from prison? Really? And it's, like, funeral flowers.

but 50 put it on his Twitter and was just like, look how gay this guy is. He's sending me flowers. He's just a world-class hater. He is. Yeah, it's aspirational. All right. I'm going to recommend, and I've recommended this to both Mike and Jeff already, but Park Chan Wook came out with another great movie this year.

It's called No Other Choice. I will agree. Mike made the point. I don't think you've watched it yet, but he did make the point like there's been a lot of just kind of capitalism is killing us all movies, especially out of South Korea. And it does get like a little tedious. But man, he's probably my favorite director. And this is just another masterpiece in my opinion. I just think it's like good start to finish and really well.

Or you even watch it? I don't know. Yeah, I got it from like some guy that pirates stuff for me. But you can probably pay for it on like streamers once it comes out. And to be completely honest with you, I'm going to buy like the physical copy of this and I'm going to give them my money. I just wanted to see it because I don't think it comes out in the U.S. until like January. So keep your eye out for it. Yeah.

If there's a message worth repeating, it's that. All right. I want to do a couple quick listener questions from Patreon. This first one's from Nick. Nick says, yo, first time in the chat, I'm thinking about eating a butterfly. Do you have any advice? Don't would be my advice. This is the worst bug to eat.

So don't do it, Nick. Yeah, start with like an ant. Yeah, yeah. Start with something small. And if you do eat a butterfly, make sure you got some water on hand. Maybe butterfly is the right way to go. first because then like you don't want to like eating bugs

so then like at least he won't like it and it's kind of like you at the bull at like you could have gradually got stung by worse and worse animals but you went to like top of the pain index right away that's true I've been stung by bees and stuff though but yeah that's fair I would just say don't be

well bees are worse than an ant that's not true did you ever eat a bee? All right, this one's from Barkwood Blues. Would you rather lose all of your memories before today or never make any other memory from today on? So you lose all of your existing memories or you can never make another memory. I'd rather never make another memory.

That just kind of means you die. Or you just like can't hold any. Reset? Yeah. I don't know. Do you retain like knowledge? Like can you still speak? I don't know.

That's just the question. I just don't think you have like memories. I think you can probably still interact. No. So what I would do is like everyone's always talking about, oh man, if I could watch the Lord of the Rings for the first time again, man,

I would do anything to have that. So what I would do is I'd make a master list of all of those things I feel that way about and then do it. And then I'll just have that on like a magnet on my fridge with that whole list. It's going to be a sick like couple of years. Like moment do momentum?

or you just randomly tattoo it all over your body? Yeah. What is one piece? One piece of what? Yeah. Yeah, that is smart. I don't think it makes sense to not be able to like remember future things as they happen. Like to me that's like you're just gone.

Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe you're overthinking it though. I think it's more just like you're not. forming any like memories in the way that we view memories from like an abstract point you know no you're not having any more fun experiences essentially yeah it might as well be dead well hold on isn't like isn't that living in the present that's the whole thing about you know I don't know whose mantra that is but isn't that like something that some people are like in very serious

pursuit of is not dwelling too much on the past just living in the moment I don't know Yeah. Maybe. Maybe there's something there. I kind of feel like I've, like, done my funest stuff already. Yeah. And that, like, I would rather treasure all that than, like, I don't know. But, yeah, you guys maybe have convinced me that I'm wrong.

So I don't know. Okay. It would suck to, like, like, you don't know that getting hit and the testicles hurt, so then you get hit there, and it's like, oh, shoot. That'd have to be the first item on the list is, like, gently tap yourself on the nuth. just to like remember. Be aware. It's going to be pretty sensitive part of your body.

Yeah. All right. This one's from Tunisia. Question for you all. I know you don't really vibe with Stephen King. We do vibe with Stephen King. We just get frustrated with him. That depends.

I don't think you say that as a general statement for all three of us. But have you watched Welcome to Derry? If so, what did you think about it? Have you guys watched it? No, sir. I started. I watched it. In its entirety, I really liked it. It has some really cheesy, like, dumb things in it. But I think if you're into it and pennywise, it really delivers, especially in the last few episodes.

So I really liked it. Okay. We'll just move on then since you guys haven't watched it. This one's from Ravioli. What's y'all's favorite Muppets and favorite piece of Muppet Media? Ravioli? Yeah. That might be a cat. It's got a cat avatar. Could be a... I don't do Muppets. Oh, really? You don't do the Muppets at all?

I like Muppet Treasure Island the most, and my favorite Muppet is Rizzo the Rat. Oh, that's a good pick. I'll always be a Gonzo guy. My mom had a whole series of children's books featuring Gonzo. The one where he runs through the museum full of everything, and then the last frame is him like bursting out of the door into the wide world and being like, there's so much else out there too. And that was always fun for me to read.

Man, what a book. Oh, man. Is Elmo a Muppet? No, that's Sesame Street. Because I like when he tweeted, how's everyone doing? Yeah. It's like, read the room, Elmo. It's pretty tough out here, Elmo.

Not so good, dude. You got to like Kermit, Miss Piggy. Yeah. No, I don't. Rolf, the dog? I don't have to. You should watch Mucket at Christmas Carol. Jesse, come me on that movie.

Christmas Carol is great. Kermit's a dork. Are you serious right now? Kermit isn't even hot. Oh, disagree to disagree. Doesn't pass Jeff's personal beth-dell test. Is there a hot girl in it? All right, we're going to leave the listener questions there.

Quick claw rating for the Santa well we haven't done them yet on a main so yeah because it hurt me yeah that's awesome of it to do uh all right so zero to ten claws how many claws would you give the bull of ant uh maybe like a three three claws i don't think i like them that much even compared to other like i like the leaf cutter ants more than bull it ants yeah i think that's fair and just by virtue of them having the most painful schmidt sting you got to give them a few extra bonus points or maybe Yeah, that's what you already did. I don't like, I don't like little bugs stinging me.

Like a bee, it's like they look cool. They're productive, so I'll put up with it and I'll like them. And they have like, you know, they dance and stuff. I don't think ants, I don't think ball dance at all, do they? I don't think so. They can produce sound, but they don't dance. Lots of things produce sound. Abdomen sound.

Yeah. Mike, how many claws? I'll go with a six. I think they're. interesting anthropologically, if that's something we can take into account. I don't know. I just, I always appreciate something that is the very most of whatever it is that they do, like a cheetah being the fastest, et cetera, et cetera.

I just think that that's a really cool thing that exists. Somehow they developed that defense mechanism to really, really fuck up a dude's day. Executioner whoosh, it's worse. It probably is. Who knows? Schmidt gave these guys the number, number one, though. He's who I trust. I ride with Schmidt

I'm going to give him a six as well I think they're probably my favorite aunt now especially that I've gotten stung with one now I think I can't think of ants that I am more interested in and fascinated by but Aunt Terry yeah I do like my Aunt Terry

they might have the best Aunt Petunia uh oh I hate one one cloffer Petunia they might have the coolest name for an ant. Yeah, they do have a cool name.

See, it's between that and fire ant in the championship. Fire ants, a cool name. Yeah. Fire ants, so cool. Six out of ten for me. And yeah. All right. Well, we'll stop here.

It's getting really windy here. I'm going to give Aunt Petunia two, clause. I mean, she didn't have to take Harry in, you know? Yeah. She kind of sucks. That's got to count for something. Sure. She sucks all the way, you know, but like she could have just left him for, you know,

out on the sidewalk. It would be hard just to have like an unpredictable wizard in your house, you know? Right. Did they, so like, towards, once he's growing up, they like put him in a bedroom, right? So that bedroom was just there the whole time he was in the stair. It was, it was Dudley's extra bedroom is what we just watched number two and that's when they bring it up. Yeah. Store all of his toys there.

Yeah. Well, really quick. That makes sense. Before we finish, if, you know, this is coming out before Christmas, if you have any last-minute gifting ideas, a gift to our Patreon is a great idea. You can hear Jeff's episode on this, King of Sting, Parts 1 and 2. You'll hear a lot of extra content. You can buy an annual membership or a monthly membership.

We definitely highly recommend it. You really don't need to, the West just did my episode verbat, pretty much. You can hear me talk shit on Jack, who I now love. All right, we'll see you guys. Love you. See it. See it.