The other day Ben and I ventured into his garden to collect bunya nuts, whilst happily frolicking in the grass, I stepped on some spikey branch thing and did a girly "ouch" and then I did a "friggen ouch, you really hurt, spikey branch thing" I looked down in disbelief that a branch could cause so much pain and saw a big scary ant on my toe, I flicked it off, ran past it's nest full of other angry ants and yelped some more before running upstairs yelling "help me" ..ben graciously handed me some ice!
Turns out I got bitten by a jumping ant, actually just saying it's name sends shivers down my spine
image courtesy from here
After a few days on and the side of my toe still looks like this...
The first night I was up three times due to pain/itchyness! Feeling like a wuss when I normally pride myself on being pretty tough, the good old words of wikipedia made me feel better..
"They sting their victims with venom that is similar to stings of wasps, bees, and fire ants. Their venom is one of the most powerful in the insect world...The symptoms of the stings of the ants are similar to stings of the fire ants. The reaction is local swelling and reddening, and fever, followed by formation of a blister. The heart rate increases, and blood pressure falls rapidly. In individuals allergic to the venom (about 3% of cases), a sting sometimes causes anaphylactic shock. Although 3% may seem small, jack jumper ants cause more deaths in Tasmania than spiders, snakes, wasps, and sharks combined."
Alright so maybe thats a bit of an exaggeration wiki cause I sure didn't have a fever, but the pain was horrible!
The bunya nuts by the way were rather tasty, Ben describes them as a mix between an assortment of roast veggies which I agree but I also added that it has a rather baked bean like taste as well. His mum said bunya nuts are the size of a coconut, but what we picked were the size of a plum, so hopefully we were actually eating bunya nuts and not some random non edible thing!
We later went out to collect macadamia nuts also from his backyard... this time I was more prepared!
Take that stupid angry ants!
God why did you give ants the ability to jump and cockroaches the ability to fly?
bahahahha nice shoe get up fee!
ReplyDeleteand i feel ya, crazy ant bites were the bane of my existence in the Philippines. once, my two littlest toes got bitten and it hurt like crazy and i wanted to vomit and then two little volcanos appeared and they were so itchy that i couldn't NOT scratch and THEN the volcanoes popped and the resulting wound got infected and i had gross infected baby toes for like TWO MONTHS. oozing pus and all that grossness. twas disgusting. i still have scars!
in conclusion, i concur. in other news, i want to try a bunya nut!
x
I know how can you not scratch!
ReplyDeleteThat one night I kept being woken up I literally belted my toe against the wall several times to try and experience a different sort of pain! I haven't had the puss yet, so thats good. Gosh, scars, oozing, infection! Did you find out what type of ant it was?
I can't believe ants can cause so much pain! They are so tiny!
no idea what kind of ant it was. it was totally opposite to your crazy ant though - mine looked like a regular tiny brown ant but that was obviously his disguise as he was actually a man-eating machine! ouchies.
ReplyDeletethose are the size bunya nuts that i know! they have a roasted vegie smell when mum has cooked them before :)
ReplyDeletemaybe bens mum means the actually seed head, they usually are about coconut size that i've seen on the trees?
katie (never eaten a bunya nut)
I'm growing an intense hate for ants, how dear they hurt my friends and I!
ReplyDeleteAnd katie I was kind of thinking it was the actually seed head hey Ben's Mum meant, they are pretty good to eat, bit starchy but maybe just needed to coat them in lots of butter, hide the taste, ha ha ha