The Sting of the Wild Illustrated Edition, Kindle Edition

A fascinating exposition on the evolution of the insect sting, by an intrepid scientist who has spent decades observing insects in their natural habitats on six continents. Author Justin Schmidt is best known for inventing the Schmidt Scale of Pain to measure the relative efficacy of insect stings, providing biologists with a basis for developing testable hypotheses about the evolution of insect stings. This account is packed with details about the lives of the six-legged fellow travelers we share the planet with. The blue digger wasp uses its stinger to paralyze a cricket, and then lays an egg atop its victim, which revives a few minutes later and crawls back into its burrow, whereupon the larva hatches out and eats its hapless host alive, thereby saving mom the trouble of digging a burrow for her little one. The dwarf honeybee has invented a remarkable method of defending itself against the depredations of the much larger giant hornet: hundreds of dwarf honeybees will cluster in a ball around the invading hornet and then vibrate their wings muscles to generate enough heat to cook their would-be attacker to death.We learn about the harvester ant, which boasts the most toxic venom of any insect (35 times more deadly than rattlesnake venom) and the dreaded “cow-killer” wasp, which escapes predation by means of a combination of its massively painful sting, its rock-hard exoskeleton, and its powerful legs, which it uses to escape the grasp of attackers. We learn how to avoid being stung when approaching a hive full of honeybees (they recognize us by the smell of our breath, so hold your breath as long as you can and turn aside to exhale), and what to do when stung by the aforementioned “cow-killer” wasp (the sting is horribly painful but carries no lasting ill effects, so just lie down and scream, thereby avoiding the risk of hurting oneself further by dashing about in a fog of pain).We also learn about the nineteenth-century British gentleman who eliminated yellowjackets from his estate, which subsequently was overrun by a plague of flies, and about the destructive and ultimately futile attempts to contain the spread of the fire ant, a struggle Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson has dubbed “the Viet Nam of entomology.”All this is leavened by Schmidt’s reminiscences about his boyhood as a budding young naturalist growing up in rural Pennsylvania and the personality quirks of his fellow biologists. The author’s presence is constant but never overbearing, a seasoned guide initiating the reader into the arcana of the insect world. Terms and concepts are explained in plain English. This book is heartily recommended for anyone interested in learning more about the natural world.

This is a most enjoyable book, written by a scientist who really knows his stuff. Moreover, he loves his chosen research area. His fascination with the topic is more than evident -and quite contagious!- in every single page of the book. The author took me through a series of interesting tales based on the biology of representatives of a few types of stinging insects like bees, ants, and wasps. There was a little bit of something in this book for pretty much everyone. He talked about behavior, pharmacology / biochemistry, ecology, and evolution among many other topics. I loved his writing style, his prudent use of notes, and the nice set of references/further readings at the end of the book. This is good, because I was left wanting for more. Also, I liked that he minimized the scientific jargon without sacrificing accuracy but more importantly, he was not at all patronizing. This shows respect for the interested reader. Moreover, he is a natural storyteller; this is a rare quality that is sadly absent in most popular science books nowadays.Dr. Schmidt is the inventor of the well-known stinging insects pain scale, but to him this was not a mere academic exercise, he came up with the scale directly from personal experience, by allowing (and sometimes encouraging) a wide variety of insects to sting him. Some have characterized his efforts as "crazy" and although I do not share that opinion, I must say that he is a braver person than most. I certainly would not engage in something like this voluntarily, you'll never know what will you turn to be allergic to. That being said, if you think Dr. Schmidt is nuts, wait until you read the story about another entomologist (Michael Smith, a grad student at Cornell University… BTW, where I got my PhD...(:-)…) who refined the pain scale, also using himself as a research subject. I'll let you read about this other guy for yourself. You'll be either fascinated or totally freaked out, but it is well worth the read!Now, if you are one of the two and a half people in this universe who read my reviews, you know that I am kind of a nitpicker. Here’s the only two “nits” that I was able to find in this book:Page 88: “…like a mongoose neutralizes the effects of cobra venom.” - As far as I know, this is not exactly what happens. Rather, the protein in the mongoose (a muscle receptor), that is the target of the cobra venom displays some mutations that make this muscle receptor venom-resistant. The venom is not neutralized, it merely cannot interact with its intended target.Pages 202-203: The description of the mechanism of how Japanese honeybees defend themselves against giant Japanese hornets is not quite right.Another thing that made me a little less enthusiastic about the book is that I felt that it ended rather “suddenly”, without general remarks leading to a conclusion. This book literally left me wanting for more.Overall, great reading!Note: This review was originally posted in my personal blog, Baldscientist.

I'd had this book in my wish list for several months. How could someone make the topic of being stung by many insects interesting? Finally, I said: "What the heck", and ordered it.It's a delightful book. There's a story behind the stings. the author's great sense of humor comes through very well.If you have a general interest in bees or other Hymenoptera, and you want to what's in a sting, you'll enjoy this book. I highly recommend it.

I was interested in this because, initially, I was tired of all the insects in my backyard trying to kill me. The writing both educated me about the insects (wasps, bees, the dreaded fire ant, and more) behavior and chemical make-up of their various injectables, but also helped me see more to them than gross crawly things invading my space. The descriptions regarding pain-scale were pretty awesome. I laughed, I learned, I'd read it again.

I shared stories from this book with my high school science classes, particularly biology. The students really enjoyed hearing stories from within this book. A great addition as a piece of literature to use with my biology and other science classes. In fact, I started making a PowerPoint presentation to share stories and appropriate pictures to go with the stories from this book, so the students could more easily visualize what was going on (my students are Deaf).

A very readable book! Very enlightening and Dr. Schmidt has a good writing style that flows very well! He's managed to intertwine technical field based research and observations in a very easy to read and understand format. You will certainly walk away from reading this with an increased appreciation of these incredible insects.

I can’t give the book more than 3 stars purely because the majority of information given is repeated constantly by the author. I bought it to find out about the different insect sting ratings & was disappointed to find that out of all the pages, only a handful of pages of scanned poorly formatted images of the tables were used. The rest of the ‘book’ was several hundred pages of the same stuff repeated just with different insect groups. I was shocked to see how few of the insects out there were on the ‘pain index’

Enjoyable reading; would be 5-star except for 2 disappointing deficiencies:1. The warrior wasp (synoeca septentrionalis) is given a rating of 4 in the pain index, but there is no mention of it in the text. The other two insects with a 4-rating (tarantula hawk and bullet ant) each have their own chapter.2. The Asian giant hornet (vespa mandarinia) is mentioned in the text, and described as possibly the most frightening insect in the world with a sting that can kill a rat, but is not listed in the pain index.

Ok - tough going in bits, think the author tried hard to appeal to a general audience but it's a bit in depth at some points eg, the chemical makeup of various venoms isn't everyone idea of a riveting read I'm afraid.

Fantastic book, very hard to put down once I started reading it!

Book arrived in perfect condition and is a great read. Highly recommend it to other animal enthusiasts