'Kings of Pain' Rob Alleva and Adam Thorn try their most painful sting so far
"What's worse than pain?" asked biologist Adam Thorn to his partner in crime Rob ‘Caveman’ Alleva, as they walked atop a small rocky mountain in South Africa, filled with vivacious predators - you know, scorpions, snakes, and the likes. The two reached the most obvious conclusion that we have been thinking right from the time these two have set out to get bitten and stung by God-knows-what-else. Death.
Thorn and Alleva brush it off saying its "Kings of Pain" and not "Kings of Death" but it is definitely starting to worry these guys. An allergic reaction here, a sting there could send them into a cardiac arrest and they could bid goodbye to their adventurous lives. And that's one of the reasons why this show is absolutely smashing - the boys never lose sight of reality and their mission to further legendary entomologist Justin Schmidt's Pain Index.
This week there are two scorpions and a creepy-as-hell fish and one of them leaves Thorn's fingers numb after the sting and Alleva is just unable to say anything. The scorpions were a new addition to the index and something even Schmidt hadn't tried before.
The duo hunted down a South African bark scorpion (Centruroides vittatus) deep into the night with their blue lights, because why not. Now, these things fall off trees because as the name suggests, it lives in barks. It can climb on backpacks and your legs, says Alleva and as if that wasn't bad enough the scorpions are massive. A medium to small scorpion under 6 cm with the tail extended. They also stumble upon (yikes!) lesser thick-tailed scorpions or the Uroplectes scorpion.
The Uroplectes scorpions are generally about 3 to 6 cm long, but a few are smaller sometimes just 2 cm in length. But do not mistake size for pain. The smaller the pincers on these things, the more they depend on their venom to paralyze and kill their prey, which implies that the venom is more potent and the pain much more intense.
As Thorn and Alleva would later find out, while the bark scorpion's sting was slow methodical sting that numbs Caveman's fingers a little, scoring a little 8.5 out of 30 on the Pain Index, it was the Uroplectes that really packed the punch, getting a 12.5, which is a lot closer to the Goliath birdeater - a hairy spider so large, it can eat mammals whole at 14.
The pain was intense with the smaller scorpion with both experts finding their heart rates and blood pressure elevated as the concerned medic just warning these two to slow down. It's just the second episode but you feel for the guy.
But the worst was yet to come.
The final animal for this week was the venomous Lionfish (Pterois), commonly found in the Indo Pacific waters. Their venom is made super painful by the release of nitric oxide that can cause extreme pain, nausea, vomiting, fever, breathing difficulties, convulsions, dizziness, heartburn, diarrhea, and sweating and rarely, temporary paralysis of the limbs, heart failure, and even death. Sounds like its just down their alley, right?
A Lionfish usually has 18 venomous spines in all and one prick can send you to the hospital. Thorn and Alleva discuss the challenges and decide to catch two so each one can experience the pain. Before you know it, Bite Day comes around and as Alleva slams his hand on the spine (fish unharmed of course) he screams in pain. He is burning and sweating and the pain spreads to his whole hand and after a while, he just couldn't even describe it any more. He's unable to speak. Thorn's hand swells up in patches as he sees blood drip out of the fish's spine as he withdraws his hand. Thirty minutes after the sting and uncountable waves of pain, he finds his two fingers paralyzed for hours. This bad boy scores 18.25, the highest on the index so far.
Can't wait for the next episode? Catch it on History every Tuesday at 10/9c.