Schmidt Sting Pain Index
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40 free Schmidt Sting Pain Index trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
One scientist spent decades being stung by ants, bees and wasps, and kept notes on how much each one hurt. The Schmidt sting pain index is the result: a ranking that runs from stings you would barely notice to a few that leave grown adults helpless. This quiz covers the insects at the top and bottom of the list, how the ratings were made, the venoms and the evolutionary idea behind the project, and the places the index has turned up since, from a spoof science prize to television. It suits anyone who likes insects, strange science or a good story about pain, and you do not need a biology degree to do well. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will finish knowing which stings to respect.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The bullet ant tops Schmidt's index; what does the word bullet in its name refer to?
The pain of being shot
The pain of being shot is how some victims describe the sting, and it keeps coming in burning, throbbing waves for up to a full day.
Q 02The Sateré-Mawé people weave live bullet ants into which item for an initiation rite?
Gloves
Gloves woven from leaves hold the ants with their stingers facing inward, and the initiate's arm can be left shaking for days afterwards.
Q 03The tarantula hawk, top-rated on Schmidt's pain index, is the official insect of which US state?
New Mexico
New Mexico adopted it in 1989 after elementary-school children researched state insects and ran a statewide ballot of schools.
Q 04Which satirical science award did Justin Schmidt share in 2015 for creating his sting pain index?
Ig Nobel Prize
The Ig Nobel Prize honours research that first makes people laugh and then makes them think, and its citation praised him for painstakingly creating the index.
Q 05Michael Smith, honoured with Justin Schmidt in 2015, took stings on 25 body parts; which hurt most?
Nostril
The nostril topped his ratings along with the upper lip, while the skull, the tip of the middle toe and the upper arm hurt least.
Q 06Justin Schmidt based his pain index on roughly how many stings he took from insects himself?
About 1,000
About 1,000 stings from more than 80 groups of ants, bees and wasps went into the ratings, with scores from colleagues used as a cross-check.
Q 07Which familiar insect's sting did Schmidt fix at a rating of 2 as the anchor for his pain index?
Honey bee
The honey bee was chosen because almost everyone knows how its sting feels, so every other insect could be scored as milder or worse than that.
Q 08The tarantula hawk has a top rating on Schmidt's index, yet its intense pain lasts only how long?
About five minutes
About five minutes is all it lasts, which makes this sting short-lived beside others on the list that throb for hours.
Q 09The stinger of ants, bees and wasps evolved from which body part?
An egg-laying tube
An egg-laying tube, called the ovipositor, turned into a venom-injecting weapon in these insects, so males have nothing to sting with.
Q 10Which Brave Wilderness host filmed himself being stung by a bullet ant and an executioner wasp?
Coyote Peterson
Coyote Peterson built a huge following by taking bites and stings on camera, though he studied film at Ohio State rather than biology.
Q 11Schmidt's sting pain index climbs from mild stings to which top level, shared by just three insects?
4
4 is the ceiling: the 1983 original gave it to a single ant, and later versions of the list added two wasps.
Q 12Female tarantula hawks paralyse tarantulas with their sting in order to do what with the spider?
Feed their larva
Feed their larva: a single egg is laid on the helpless spider, and the grub that hatches eats it while steering clear of the vital organs.
Q 13Which insect, nicknamed the cow killer, has a sting rated as high as 3 on Schmidt's index?
Velvet ant
The velvet ant is a wasp whose females lack wings, and its armour is so tough that collectors have struggled to push steel pins through it.
Q 21Schmidt built his pain index to test whether painful, toxic venom let insects evolve which way of life?
Living in colonies
Living in colonies turns a nest into a rich meal for predators, so Schmidt reasoned that only insects with punishing venom could afford to gather.
Q 22Which 2016 book by Justin Schmidt gathered his pain ratings for dozens of ants, bees and wasps?
The Sting of the Wild
The Sting of the Wild pairs each rating with a brief description of how the insect's attack felt, since very different pains can share one number.
Q 23Which Arizona city housed the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center, where Schmidt developed his pain index?
Tucson
Q 14Which invasive pests of US backyards and golf courses rate only 1 on Schmidt's sting pain index?
Fire ants
Fire ants sit near the bottom of the scale, where Schmidt likened their sting to the small static shock from touching a light switch.
Q 15Justin Schmidt, who built his pain index at a bee research center, was a specialist in which field?
Entomology
Entomology is the study of insects, and Schmidt spent his career on their chemical and behavioural defences, venom above all.
Q 16In which part of the world are bullet ants, the top-rated stingers on Schmidt's pain index, found?
Central and South America
Central and South America is their home, where they live in humid lowland rainforest in nests of several hundred ants.
Q 17The bald-faced hornet, rated 2 on Schmidt's pain index, is not a true hornet but which kind of wasp?
Yellowjacket
A yellowjacket in black and white: the species is classed as an aerial yellowjacket, and its pale face sets it apart from its yellow cousins.
Q 18Which insect, common in Arizona and rated 3 by Schmidt, is believed to have the most toxic venom of all?
Harvester ant
The harvester ant in question is the Maricopa species, whose venom is potent enough that a dozen stings can kill a two-kilogram rat.
Q 19Which top-rated insects on Schmidt's index warn intruders by drumming on the inside of their nest?
Warrior wasps
Warrior wasps scrape their jaws across the nest wall to sound the alarm, and Schmidt pictured their sting as being chained in a lava flow.
Q 20Every insect on Schmidt's pain index belongs to which order, a group that also includes the sawflies?
Hymenoptera
Hymenoptera takes in the ants, bees and wasps, more than 150,000 described species, and its name is Greek for membrane wing.
Tucson was where he spent years studying bee nutrition, chemical communication and behaviour, and he died in the city in 2023.
Q 24Which History Channel series inspired by Schmidt's index has two hosts score bites and stings out of 30?
Kings of Pain
Kings of Pain sends biologist Adam Thorn and animal handler Rob Alleva out to be bitten and stung, scoring intensity, duration and damage.
Q 25The jack jumper ant, rated 2 on Schmidt's index, is feared less for its pain than for causing what?
Anaphylaxis
Anaphylaxis from its sting has killed several people, because the venom is unusually good at provoking allergies in those who live near the ants.
Q 26Polistes species, several of which rate 3 on Schmidt's index, get which common name from their nests?
Paper wasps
Paper wasps mix fibres from dead wood and plant stems with saliva, building open combs that look like grey handmade paper.
Q 27Schmidt rated one everyday bee sting a full point higher, at 3, when it lands on which part of the body?
Tongue
The tongue is the special case: he imagined the bee hiding inside a soda can, and judged the aftermath thoroughly miserable.
Q 28Bullhorn acacia ants, rated under 2 by Schmidt, sting to repay their host tree with which service?
Driving off herbivores
Driving off herbivores is the ants' side of the bargain, and in return the tree houses them in swollen thorns and feeds them.
Q 29Justin Schmidt argued that painful stings evolved chiefly as a defence against which kind of attacker?
Large vertebrates
Large vertebrates such as mammals and birds can be a million times an insect's size, and Schmidt called the stinger the weapon that cancels that gap.
Q 30What do biologists call the bright warning colours that advertise a tarantula hawk's sting to predators?
Aposematism
Aposematism works because a predator learns to link the rust-coloured wings and blue-black body with an attack it never wants to feel twice.