What is the bullet ant test?

Boys as young as 12 years old must gather bullet ants from the forest, which are then used to make ant-ridden gloves. The young men wear the gloves 20 times for 10 minutes, performing a dance while those angry insects sting them.

How painful is the sting of a bullet ant?

Bullet ant Last but not least, we have the most painful sting of all — the bullet ant sting. Schmidt describes the pain as “pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail embedded in your heel” and rates it as a 4.0+…off-the-charts pain that lasts up to 24 hours.

What are the symptoms of a bullet ant?

The bullet ant’s poneratoxin is a small peptide (25 amino acid residues long) neurotoxin that can cause extreme pain, cold sweats, nausea, vomiting and even abnormal heart rhythms.

Are bullet ant stings really that bad?

They are named the bullet ant because their sting is so bad it “feels like you were shot by a gun.” And while the venom is incredibly painful, it is not deadly and has no lasting effects after 24 hours.To the Amazon’s Sateré-Mawé people getting stung by bullet ants is part of life.

What does bullet ant mean?

Bullet-ant meaning A stinging ant, of the genus Paraponera, native to Central and South America.

What does a bullet ant eat?

Bullet ants eat nectar and small arthropods . One type of prey, the glasswing butterfly (Greta oto) has evolved to produce larvae that taste unpleasant to bullet ants. Larvae of the glasswing butterfly taste bad to bullet ants. Helaine Weide / Getty Images

Where is the bullet ant located?

Bullet ants live in the tropical rainforest of Central and South America, in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. The ants build their colonies at the base of trees so they can forage in the canopy.

What are bullet ants predators?

Bullet ants make habitats in lowland tropical areas occurring at high elevations ranging from 2,460 to 4,920 feet above the sea level. The phorid flies are the predators of bullet ants.