It was probably a member of the Limacodidae family of slug caterpillars. They have stinging hairs on them that make you feel like you’ve got a burn. We have the saddleback variety here. My husband was mowing the lawn one day and brushed by one of our tree’s low-hanging branches that just happened to have a saddleback perched on one of the leaves. Just that glancing contact got his arm burning.
I’ve not had that experience, but the worst sting I recall getting was when I stepped on a wasp that was crawling across our living room carpet. I think the wasp got the worst of that one, though.
Before camping a couple years ago, I found some mosquito repellent that didn’t use DEET. IIRC it was lemon and eucalyptus. I thought it worked great because I didn’t get mosquito bites. What I didn’t realize was that DEET was what was keeping chiggers away. DAMN! Those things are brutal!
That’s funny! The yellow jackets might have disagreed!
When I was in the Boundary Waters in college, I was bitten by a giant black ant, and when I say “giant”, I’m not kidding; it was at least 1/2 inch long and had visible flesh between its pincers. That thing was painful! The leader of our group said that the Native Americans used these ants to close wounds, in the days before stitches. I can believe it.
Stung a few times by bees (had to pull out the stinger) and at least twice by either a bee or hornet (visible sting but no stinger) as a kid. I kinda thought that was normal for an eighties kid who played out a lot. The only one that hurt was a bee sting on the sole of my foot, because it got knocked way into the sole, so it was painful getting it out.
As an adult I got stung by a hornet on my wrist when I was 39/40 weeks pregnant. My whole hand swelled up like a blow-up glove and I had a temperature. I was reassured that it wouldn’t be a problem.
My daughter looked like she’d been in a WWE fight after a hornet stung her on the eye once when she was about five - and she got stung badly several times at around the same age, then a couple of times when she was older despite doing her very best to avoid them. She’s somewhat scared of bee-type insects (except actual honey bees), but it’s somewhat understandable, since they do seem to like stinging her.
I also got stung by a jellyfish as a kid in Spain. Didn’t actually hurt all that much and it was kinda cool having a really obvious jellyfish sting.
The first was a honeybee I stepped on barefoot. Got me between two of the lesser toes. Hurt the rest of the day. Since then several paper wasps have gotten me on the knee, thumb, belly, and ankle. Fire ant stings are just par for the course here in S. GA.
The worst was the cow killer. It got me three times. It crawled way up my pants leg and stung me just above and to the left of my kneecap, then twice on my calf. The first sting made an oval cherry red welt about four inches wide and six inches long (15 by 10 cm). The pain was intense.
Here’s a foolish guy getting stung by one on purpose.
I hadn’t considered fly bites when writing the OP but I was on Chicago’s Lake Michigan lakefront last night. The flies were vicious and I was bitten several times to the extent blood was drawn on my ankles. Two bites actually had blood flowing into little rivulets where the lesser bites were more like pinpoints. I was advised to keep my feet higher up (basically rest them on the fire pit) which did seem to help. Bastards!
As a kid, maybe 10, I stepped in a nest of yellowjackets under a tree while hunting for lost golf balls. I got something like 40 stings up one leg and about 15 on the other. Man that sucked. My mom did the baking soda poultice thing and they thought about taking me to the hospital, but I recovered.
A few years later something got down the back of my shirt while sitting in the car, when I leant back it got me 4 times before I got it out. Fortunately, the car was stopped.
2 years ago a yellowjacket got me on the knee and it swelled up to the size of a grapefruit, I seem to have developed an allergy over the years. I found that bastards nest in a railroad tie beam along the side of my driveway, waited until dark, poured about 3 oz of gasoline in there and lit it up. The cavity was about 5’ long. Fuckers. I still check that area when mowing the lawn.
Right now I’ve got a mosquito bite on the back of my right hand.
When I was 13 I was using a riding mower to mow a neighbor’s yard and I ran over a ground nest of wasps. They came after me with a vengeance and I got several stings on my legs and arms. I ran home leaving the engine running and by this time I had broken out in hives all over my body. I thought they were all stings and I was home alone so I called my pediatrician’s office and told them I had a thousand stings. The doctor came to my house (this was about 1970; no such thing as 911 yet, and the house call was nearly but not quite extinct). I don’t remember what he did, but the hives went down. One sting on my ankle caused so much swelling I couldn’t walk on that foot for a couple of days. At which point I retrieved the mower. I didn’t get anaphylaxis or anything that severe.
I have had quite a few bee stings mostly on my hands one on my lip. I seem to remember a little swelling and some pain for 1/2 hour or so. I had a bunch of yellow jackets get on me one time and they were painful but not for very long and I don’t remember any swelling. I had two black widow bites in the same year about 5 years ago. I actually witnessed them bite me before I could get them off. I had almost no reaction so I assume they were dry bites if that is possible. The most painful one I had was one of those big black bumblebees, I didn’t know they could sting and I caught one in my hand. No bad reaction but very painful for several minutes.
