YouTuber Nathaniel "Coyote" Peterson is used to bug bites. It's often been a part of his job as founder and host of "Brave Wilderness," an online series focusing on adventurous excursions and run-ins with nature, which often include being bitten and stung by creatures.
While many Americans have been on-edge after The New York Times reported on the presence of "murder hornets" in the US, Peterson, sometimes called the "King of Sting," is not intimidated. He intentionally let one of the frightening and dangerous bugs sting him on-camera for a 2018 video.
The so-called murder hornets, also called Asian giant hornets, have previously killed 41 people in the Chinese province of Shaanxi in 2013 and have been known to allegedly kill mice and behead colonies of bees.
In his video, Peterson writhed in what he called "searing pain," Peterson's arm ballooned almost immediately and became extremely red.
Peterson, 38, wasn't afraid of the hornet, though he said it's on the "upper echelon" of the Schmidt pain index, entomologist Justin Schmidt's bug-sting resource. The index ranks from one to four, with four being the most amount of pain. That's where the murder hornet falls.
"In all of these instances, obviously I'm not dying. Yes, it's pain. Yes, there's some swelling in the aftermath, but we warn people that the best course of action if you see one of these things in the wild is to admire it from a safe distance," Peterson told Insider in a phone interview on Wednesday.
Peterson said he didn't start his YouTube channel with the idea of filming his own stings. But his first bug attack video, in which harvester ants in Tucsan, Arizona, attacked his hands in 2016, performed extremely well with viewers.
"I always say to people that the best animal presenters are the ones that are not being bitten and stung by things. And I'm actually really good at not being bitten and stung," Peterson said, laughing. "So when we discovered that being bitten and stung was really gripping the audience, we started experimenting."
While most people wouldn't wish this pain upon themselves, Peterson has certainly cracked something. The Brave Wilderness channel has 16 million subscribers and more than three billion total views. His most popular videos include willingly experiencing bites from bugs called "cow killers," "bloodworms," and "tarantula hawks," each of which have more than 50 million views.
"The thing that drives me is certainly being able to educate people. I don't enjoy pain, I enjoy educating people," he said. By sharing footage of his own stings, Peterson said he can demystify these creatures for viewers. "They're learning a lot about these creatures. In the end, they're learning that these animals are not out to get you," he said.
Though Peterson is a self-taught wildlife educator and expert (who became inspired by "animal adventurers" like Steve Irwin, Jeff Corwin, Austin Stevens, Marty Stouffer), he said he always works with other entomologists and experts on his videos, and has medical professionals "on standby" while filming his bites and stings. Peterson said his team keeps an epinephrine pen on set as well in case he has an allergic reaction. "We always take those precautions before I perform any one of these seemingly extreme stunts by being bitten or stung by something," he said.
Still, Peterson acknowledged that he has an "insanely high" pain tolerance, which contributes to his willingness to perform these dangerous acts. "But then again, to each their own," he added. "I mean, I can only say what it is I experienced. I'm sure there are many people out there far tougher than I am, so to speak. But, you know, I guess I've just gotten used to it at this point."
Peterson said that now he's written a book about his experiences, called "The King of Sting," and documented so many different bugs online, he doesn't feel the need to make more. "You can only get stung by so many things," he said. Though he may be bitten or stung on accident while filming his YouTube videos and his Animal Planet series "Brave the Wild," he said it's probably the end of the road.
"But as far as doing it intentionally, we just didn't necessarily see a reason to continue on with that process," he said.
Peterson said his 2018 murder hornet sting video has received millions of additional views in the days since The New York Times' May 2 report, but he said he doesn't believe there's anything to worry about, as only one dead murder hornet has been sighted in the US thus far. "They're not a they," he said. "There has been a single individual hornet that was found in the Pacific Northwest and it's important to keep in mind that that Hornet was also dead."
Though the murder hornet does reach the top of Schmidt's sting index, Peterson said another creature beats it. The executioner wasp, which he was stung by just a couple of months after the murder hornet, was much worse, Peterson said. In the executioner wasp video, Peterson yelled that the sting was "burning uncontrollably."
The two creatures may be on the same general level of pain, but Peterson said the executioner definitely earned its name. "The reason the executioner wasp is more damaging has to do with the components of the venom," he said.
As for whether his family is concerned when Peterson gets into these life-threatening situations, he said it's really just his mother who worries. "My family certainly is always concerned for my wellbeing. I would say if anybody, my mom is probably the one that's always the most worried, but she's super adventurous," Peterson said, adding that it was his mother who inspired his passion for nature as a child. "She introduced me to so many different animal species in nature."
Oddly enough, his mother inadvertently led to his bite and sting videos. He filmed the harvester ants video in her Arizona backyard. "She told me she had been stung by one and to watch out for them, because it was the worst sting she ever got," Peterson said. Naturally, he took her challenge.
"A lot of my background in wilderness education and exploration was really sort of nurtured by her from a very young age," Peterson said.
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