Fragments From Floyd

This is the time of year the yellowjackets get nasty. They find holes in the ground (thank you very much, army of Goose Creek moles, voles and chipmunks) where they build nests like crazy, getting ready for winter. This obviously puts them in a foul mood at about the time I'm out scouting for firewood. They hate it when I pass within a hundred yards of one of their holes carrying my chainsaw. They'll nail me for sure in the coming weeks, and I'm far more cautious about watching for them than for snakes. Dang snakes won't chase you all the way back to your truck; or get down your britches leg.

Now I've been stung by lots of venomous athropods: fire ants and hornets, paper wasps and sweat bees. And I'd have thought yellowjacket stings rated right near the top for pain. Not so, according to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index that rates 'jackets about midways up the scale. I'll reproduce it for those of you too lazy to click over to wikipedia:

• 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
• 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
• 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
• 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
• 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
• 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
• 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of Hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
• 4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).
• 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.

At first glance, you might think we're judging wines: light, ephemeral almost fruity? I like his similes: WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue. Hydrochloric acid on a paper cut. That's good.

I'm going to use this for a class discussion early on. Every one of my students will have been stung. They can't sit their passively as if this isn't relevant. And in the process, maybe I can sneak some biology into their brains.

Take the Pepsis Wasp (Tarantula Hawk) for instance. There's lots of interesting biology in their prey preferences, hunting techniques, behavior and the relationship between their anatomy and their lifestyle--between form and function--that we can draw from this single wikipedia page.

And the take-home lesson: don't whine when you get zapped by a few measly yellow jackets. You could have encountered 100% more pain if you'd got into a mess of Bullet Ants. (South and Central America. No sightings yet on Goose Creek.)