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Title details for The Sting of the Wild by Justin O. Schmidt - Available

The Sting of the Wild

by Justin O. Schmidt
L.J. Ganser
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt is on a mission. Some say it's a brave exploration, others shake their heads in disbelief. His goal? To compare the impacts of stinging insects on humans, mainly using himself as the gauge.
In The Sting of the Wild, the colorful Dr. Schmidt takes us on a journey inside the lives of stinging insects, seeing the world through their eyes as well as his own. He explains how and why they attack and reveals the powerful punch they can deliver with a small venom gland and a "sting," the name for the apparatus that delivers the venom. We learn which insects are the worst to encounter and why some are barely worth considering.
The Sting of the Wild includes the complete Schmidt Sting Pain Index. In addition to a numerical ranking of the agony of each of the eighty-three stings he's sampled so far (from below 1 to an excruciatingly painful 4), Schmidt describes them in prose worthy of a professional wine critic: "Looks deceive. Rich and full-bodied in appearance, but flavorless" and "Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel."

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 28, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781515993964
      • File size: 278947 KB
      • Duration: 09:41:08

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt doesn't TRY to get stung when he's dealing with harvester ants and other venomous creatures. However, he's been stung enough to consider the stings a data point. Narrator L.J. Ganser's voice is cheerful as he reads Schmidt's first-person account, even when the text is comparing the painful ant stings the author has lived through. Schmidt's fatalistic sense of humor also carries through to the science of stings and poisonous animals. It's not all bleak; some of the stinging creatures, such as the domesticated honey bee, are beneficial to humans. The audiobook wraps up with a pain scale, in which Ganser rattles off pain descriptions as if describing the tastes of wines. Getting stung is never funny, but Schmidt's take on the subject often is. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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