Belonging to the Pompilidae family, of the Pepsis genus, the horse wasp is considered the insect with the most painful sting in the world, according to the “Schmidt Scale”, which classifies the intensity of stings.
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This scale was devised by entomologist Justin Schmidt, a researcher at Southwest Biological Institute, with the purpose of measuring the dimension of the pain of the bites of several insects around the world. Therefore, the horse wasp emerges as the insect with the most painful sting on the entire planet, reaching grade 4 on the scale created by the entomologist.
The horse wasp can reach up to 5 cm in length. In addition, their paws have a kind of "hook" capable of holding their prey. This allows it to drive its 7 mm stinger into the attacked victim.
Like beetles and butterflies, the body of these animals has segmentations divided into head, thorax and abdomen, six legs, a pair of antennae and a chitin exoskeleton. However, they are invertebrate insects, similar to bees, for example.
As much as it has no natural predators, because its sting is an excellent defense mechanism, the wasp-horse is not in the habit of stinging humans, unless it feels threatened. Furthermore, their favorite prey are the spiders of the Theraphosidae family, better known as tarantulas, since the bodies of these arachnids serve as a nest for their larvae.
The pain from a grade 4 sting is very intense and immediate, being able to paralyze an adult human being. For a better understanding, bee stings are classified as grade 1 on the Schmidt Scale.
Therefore, the only sting that comes close to that of the horse wasp is that of the Cape Verde ant, popularly called tocandira or tucandeira. However, the difference between them is the time that the pain caused persists in the body of a human being.
