This post makes me kind of uncomfortable. That's okay, it's fascinating and I'll deal with it. Coyote Peterson getting stung by the cowkiller or velvet ant was lucky. Yeah, I've seen his video series on stinging insects.
I was stung by a velvet ant in my backyard vegetable garden many years ago. Incapacitated for three days. No exaggeration. There was no swelling on the arch of my left foot, but within one second of the "uh-oh what just happened moment", I was bolting for the back door, about 12 feet away. I had to crawl onto that porch and knocked the bottle of ammonia off the shelf so I could dump it over my foot. Very brief respite, maybe a second and a half. Crawled into the kitchen, got a bag of frozen veg out and lay there on the floor with the icy bag and a tea towel wrapped around my foot. The only comfort was when the ice had caused enough pain to counter the wasp sting. My dogs and cats (3/3) clustered around me, but stayed at least a foot away as I spasmed or shuddered with renewed pain. My ex came home, replaced the veg with a huge mixing bowl of ice, helped me to bed where I lay prone with my foot in the ice bath until that pain made me take it out, then had my foot out on a towel until the numbness waned allowing the sting to renew it's relentless attack, then back in the ice again. For three days. Literally. I have a very high tolerance for pain, and I adore all animals and plants, but I had the irrational idea that I wanted to asphalt my back yard. I think that was just in a dream, but I still remember the inclination, kinda like the irrational feeling I'd get when I had migraines that if I could just bury an axe in my head or chainsaw my face and top of my head off, I'd feel better. Of course I know that was just the pain talking, but there it is.
While I was in bed with the ice and the dogs and the cats, my ex called the entomologists at the university to find someone who could identify the insect by the effect it had, the glimpse of red, the location in the state, the loose sandy organic soil, etc. He did not have to get very far with his description. Dasymutilla occidentalis
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/mis ... llidae.htmThe cowkiller part of the name is kinda iffy. Entomologists will tell you there are no verified case of livestock being killed, but they certainly have been stung and have been in serious pain, but farmers will say there are cases of dead livestock. What I know about university types and their statistics is that something doesn't exist if one of their own hasn't witnessed it. I tend to believe the farmers. Grain of salt.
Do not asphalt your garden. They are generally solitary and shy creatures, living underground in little mole run kind of rills. They really aren't interested in you unless you sit on them. Or inadvertently step on them as I did. I have only been able to walk barefoot in the yard after ten years or so post sting. Flipflops at every doorway. My respirations are up just thinking about that event in my life.
