harvester ants are intriguing because
not only are they among the most painful
of all stinging insects their venom is
3040 times more toxic than say
rattlesnake venom and if you pick them
up by hand well you might just get stung
biggest risk around here is not being
stung by the harvester ants I use an
aspirator as we call it so what I do is
I can very carefully pick up the and if
you do it right you can pick up just the
end and not a whole mouthful of dirt
takes a little bit of practice but you
get good at after a while it’s a little
awkward in here I’ve been to 22 or 23
different countries over this time I
estimate have been stung by about
thousand to 1,500 different times
don’t like it but you know it’s
occupational hazard my research consists
of testing various Venom’s from various
insects I’m doing biochemical and
pharmacological tests on them on the
medical level we can use insect venom
for helping our own welfare and say
chronic pain from from surgery or or
arthritis or cancer or something of this
nature that’s the tip of the abdomen
including the stinger and you put the
little bit of venom into there the idea
is we’d like to be able to make a
specific drug that targets just the pain
doesn’t have all these side effects
which is so devastating
so I’m coming up to a collection of
Pacific cicada killers these are
probably the fastest wasps that I know
of
they’re incredibly hard to catch most of
what they’re doing right now is these
are males they’re sparring with each
other trying to set up territories to
attract the females for mating I finally
got one he’s in the net come on fella
come up the far end Wiggin that’s a good
guy
no I succeeded hello there little fella
oh I know you’re not happy how can you
not admire the beauty of something like
this cicada killer but you see he’s got
this clever trick he’s acting like a
female the females of course are the
ones that can sting I’m sneaky enough to
know that he’s just just a sweet
loveable male and they can’t really hurt
me I’m fascinated with Venom’s because
they allow us to understand the
evolution of sociality but also it helps
us understand ourselves we’re social
animals and we compare our sociality
with insects and see what do we have in
common we can learn from their stories
we can learn to love the insects or even
if we’re afraid of them if we understand
them we can be a little less afraid and
a little more tolerant and that will
improve our joy of life
[Music]
this is a containment facility for our
live exhibits right here something
that’s in there again they have really
meaty cause full of muscle they can use
that to grab anything smaller than them
so we feed them crickets
not only are they among the most painful
of all stinging insects their venom is
3040 times more toxic than say
rattlesnake venom and if you pick them
up by hand well you might just get stung
biggest risk around here is not being
stung by the harvester ants I use an
aspirator as we call it so what I do is
I can very carefully pick up the and if
you do it right you can pick up just the
end and not a whole mouthful of dirt
takes a little bit of practice but you
get good at after a while it’s a little
awkward in here I’ve been to 22 or 23
different countries over this time I
estimate have been stung by about
thousand to 1,500 different times
don’t like it but you know it’s
occupational hazard my research consists
of testing various Venom’s from various
insects I’m doing biochemical and
pharmacological tests on them on the
medical level we can use insect venom
for helping our own welfare and say
chronic pain from from surgery or or
arthritis or cancer or something of this
nature that’s the tip of the abdomen
including the stinger and you put the
little bit of venom into there the idea
is we’d like to be able to make a
specific drug that targets just the pain
doesn’t have all these side effects
which is so devastating
so I’m coming up to a collection of
Pacific cicada killers these are
probably the fastest wasps that I know
of
they’re incredibly hard to catch most of
what they’re doing right now is these
are males they’re sparring with each
other trying to set up territories to
attract the females for mating I finally
got one he’s in the net come on fella
come up the far end Wiggin that’s a good
guy
no I succeeded hello there little fella
oh I know you’re not happy how can you
not admire the beauty of something like
this cicada killer but you see he’s got
this clever trick he’s acting like a
female the females of course are the
ones that can sting I’m sneaky enough to
know that he’s just just a sweet
loveable male and they can’t really hurt
me I’m fascinated with Venom’s because
they allow us to understand the
evolution of sociality but also it helps
us understand ourselves we’re social
animals and we compare our sociality
with insects and see what do we have in
common we can learn from their stories
we can learn to love the insects or even
if we’re afraid of them if we understand
them we can be a little less afraid and
a little more tolerant and that will
improve our joy of life
[Music]
this is a containment facility for our
live exhibits right here something
that’s in there again they have really
meaty cause full of muscle they can use
that to grab anything smaller than them
so we feed them crickets
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