At first, he figured that pain was just part of his job. But then he realized his experiences could help answer some puzzling questions. For instance: Why do some stings hurt a lot more than others?
To compare different kinds of stings, Schmidt created the Sting Pain Index. It ranks stings on a scale of 1 to 4, with 4 the most agonizing. “By putting numbers to the pain, I could begin to see patterns,” Schmidt says.
For example, the stings of solitary insects like the tarantula hawk often feel awful, but don’t do any real harm. On the other hand, insects that live in social groups, such as honeybees, tend to have moderately painful stings that are highly toxic. These observations told Schmidt that toxic stings are important defenses for social insects, which have to protect nests full of tasty larvae and sometimes honey. The pain of toxic stings is a warning to predators: Stay away or you could die.
“It turns out that pain is a very valuable mechanism for discouraging a predator from attacking you,” says Schmidt. But it’s a lesson that’s lost on him. “Pain to me is just a bluff.”