YouTube Channel Brave Wilderness Completes Tour Of World’s Most Painful Stings

Over the past year, animal expert Coyote Peterson has embarked on an excruciating adventure. Peterson, who hosts the Brave Wildnerness channel on YouTube, has been on a quest to suffer the most painful stings known to man. Now, he has completed his journey by subjecting himself to the torturous back end of the bullet ant, which is regarded as nature’s most painful stinger.

The bullet ant, native to Central and South America, is highest-rated critter on the Schmidt sting pain index. Its name refers to that sting, which is supposed to be so painful that it is akin to being shot.

For Peterson, the bullet ant is the ultimate challenge. His sting tour began in January 2016, when he allowed harvester ants to ravage his hands. After experiencing the pain dished out by sinister-named creatures like the cow killer and the tarantula hawk, he prepared for the main event by heading to Costa Rica and capturing a bullet ant in the wild. What happened next is best described through video:

While he has engaged in his sojourn of self-flagellation, Peterson has become a bonafide YouTube star. Back in March, Brave Wilderness had just 588,000 subscribers. Since then, the channel has rolled up huge viewership numbers, driven in part by the degree to which it has been favored by YouTube’s algorithm. Now, it has more than 4.6 million subscribers and is gathering more every day.

Peterson’s sting tour has clearly been the best thing to ever happen to his channel, so if he wants to keep racking up views, he should find other ways to harm himself through the power of the animal kingdom. Talk about a mixed blessing.