What's the most painful sting in the world?

Top contenders for the nastiest sting range from bullet ants to warrior wasps and tiny jellyfish. To find out which is most painful, some adventurous experts have spent their lives getting stung. Would you rather be walloped by boxer Mike Tyson or take a jackhammer to the kidneys? That's what it feels like to receive two of the world's most painful stings. When it comes to which is the worst, it's all a matter of taste. Stinging animals – from familiar backyard buzzers to curious sea creatures – use a cocktail of chemical defences including neurotoxins and inflammatory agents to defend themselves or subdue prey. While biters (such as spiders and snakes) use their fanged mouths to administer venom, for stingers it's the other end you should steer clear of. We asked experts about the most painful stings in the animal kingdom, setting aside lethality. Here's their ranking. The father of the modern getting-stung-on-purpose field was Justin Schmidt, an entomologist from Arizona who developed an eponymous sting pain index by subjecting himself to jabs from at least 96 species of insects, including bees, hornets, wasps and ants. He sorted stings into four tiers of pain, adding evocative,

Apr 7, 2026 → Apr 7, 2026