http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html

Quote

It's a full inch long, it lives in trees and thus can and will fall on you to scare you away from its hive--the one you didn't know was there, because it's in a fucking tree. Before it does this, it shrieks at you. This ant, you see, can shriek.

It's called a Bullet Ant because its 'unusually severe' sting feels like getting shot. On the Schmidt Sting Index, Bullet Ants rate as the number one most try-not-to-shit-out-your-spine painful in the entirety of the Kingdom Arthropoda.

Also--and we do feel the need to stress this--they fucking shriek at you before they attack.

---

Are you the sort of person who likes to think of yourself as tough? A "badass," perhaps? "Hard," as they say?

Some of the indigenous peoples of the area use Bullet Ants as part of this initiation-to-manhood ceremony that they do. You know the kind we mean, with us it's like, a big party and your relatives give you money and everyone loves you and is so proud of you? Yeah with them, it's these special leaf sleeves with hundreds of bullet ants woven into them, stingers-inwards. They put them on and are immediately stung to holy fucking bejeezus by, and this is important, hundreds of Bullet Ants woven into the sleeves, stingers-inward.

The goal is to leave them on for 10 minutes, after which their arms are stiff, useless lengths of twisting agony, their bodies wracked with uncontrollable spasms for days. And in order to be actually pass the ordeal and become a man, they have to do it 20 fucking times.

Incredible Ritual With Hundreds of Poisonous Bullet Ants

Where the HELL do they get this shit?!

I don't understand why they arent screaming in the first place. They must have some sort of painkillers or something.


None the less, it's absolutely stupid to do stuff like this.

Never thought of pain killers. They could be high too .

It's 'rites' of passage. Like funeral rites.

And, shit like this is in every culture. Just some are less painful, others are moreso. It tells the world that you are to be looked on as a man. More likely than not, a dangerous man.

Screaming means that others don't look at you with respect. Of course, there's probably some trick to it.

Fixed, danke

Andre Vienne (07:54pm Sun, Aug 16, 2009)

And, shit like this is in every culture. Just some are less painful, others are moreso. It tells the world that you are to be looked on as a man. More likely than not, a dangerous man.

Yeah, I'd like to discuss the metaphor behind it and the different ones.

What metaphor?

How the hell the horrible things they do translates to being a man.

It shows that you have done something that causes you amazing pain, which prepares you for the pain of life. Alternately, the pain is something of an initiatory thing.

If you have suffered through the pain, like all of the others, you are considered a member of the brotherhood, a man. It's pretty evident in military training as well. Ever notice ow military guys have great respect for other military guys?

It's a way of paying one's dues to get into the organization. A way to show others that you belong.

Any organisation I have to suffer physical pain to join.. I think I'll mosey on past! Lol.

Now mental anguish or emotional distress? Then I'm your guy... 

Pain is fleeting.

Andre Vienne (07:08pm Tue, Aug 18, 2009)

Pain is fleeting.

Pain can be very fleeting.. But it bloody hurts whilst its there!!

What if they died from this though? What if they were allergic to what ever the test was?

Then they die. I mean, one must consider; if they're allergic to those, they might not be fit for running around in the jungle. Consider how often bites by those little bastards would pop up.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if it was devised to make sure that people who were allergic wouldn't tax the tribe's resources too heavily.

Kimberley (12:23am Thu, Aug 20, 2009)

What if they died from this though? What if they were allergic to what ever the test was?

Natural selection

Andre Vienne (02:43am Thu, Aug 20, 2009)

=Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if it was devised to make sure that people who were allergic wouldn't tax the tribe's resources too heavily.

Oh that's so devious I want to add some sort of evil sub plot to my story - since my main character came from some old tribe place.

Technically, it's artificial selection. Genocide and killing specific folk isn't exactly 'natural'. Well, unless you're a monkey or an ant.

Well they're orchestrating a test, yes, but obviously they feel it important to be brought up a certain way in order to pass that test. If you can't pass it you'll bring the tribe down and they're all in danger.

Yeah, pretty much. But it's still not natural selection, which works on populations, not individuals.

Wait.

So you're saying that if a cow is born with 3 legs, natural selection wouldnt target it because it isnt say 100 3 legged cows?

No, natural selection would take that poor bastard out! There'd be wolverines and eagles eating that shit LOL. Seriously though, It might not be "natural selection" so to speak, but they live near these things so it would be a good idea to build or have a natural tolerance yeah?

Who knows? The cow might live forever, considering it's in a pasture, and nobody will give it a second look. The farmer would probably not let it breed, however. Artificial selection.

A natural tolerance would come with it, but after going through something like this, it could also give you a pretty good antivenom within your bloodstream.

Couldnt you pass the anti venom on to your kids?


Also, the wolverines will give that cow a second look. It can't run like the others!!

Artificial selection is more akin to how we ended up with the tea cup Chihuahua and the Puffin Hound.  Both are massively different from the very original domesticated dogs, changed by intentional genetic forces placed upon them (i.e. forced breeding). 

Natural selection that we can see here and today would be mice starting to speciate as the pale-coated deer mouse splits from the common deer mouse because of the light-colored sandy environment it lives in.  Humans, or other intelligent beings, had nothing to do with the environmental changes in the past five thousand years that lead to the sandy light-colored soil appearing in the middle of Nebraska.  So it's natural selection that the mice are changing the color of their coats over time to better adapt to the light-colored ground, compared to their cousins that live on darker soil.

To contrast this better, there's the example of the peppered moths in the United Kingdom.  They were originally a light color, allowing them to blend in with the light-colored bark of trees that blanketed the countryside.  As the Industrial Revolution got underway, soot from the factories around the countries rained down, sticking to the bark of the trees and blanketing them in a dark patchwork.  The light-colored moths stood out against the dirty bark and were picked off easily by their natural predators, encouraging any of them with mutations that caused their wings to be peppered with dark spots to thrive.  Which gave rise to the peppered moth as it's known today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8225000/8225219.stm

OMG he's so CUTE .


So, you can force a genetic mutation? What other ways can they adapt? I don't understand how it happens. The environment changes, but how do they change to meet that exactly?

Things don't deliberately change.

And, I'm pretty sure that antivenom doesn't get passed on genetically.

Doh! I was thinking about how the antibodies from the mother go to the baby... . Just smack me upside the head and send me on my way lol.

I have NFI then. WTF is the point?

 To prove yourself worthy of being called a man. We went over this.

I don't know what I would do if I was told my son had to undergo some dangerous rite of passage that could possibly kill him. Having lost his father I don't think I could bare to lose him. It seems like madness to me but I guess in a way it does make sense...if these people will bring the whole down then it's good they aren't able to breed and make the whole weaker...and I guess the only way to know is to test them.

Quite a few years back there was a film with Richard Harris entitled A Man Called Horse, which dealt with a NA Indian ritual that is essentially being  hung up in the air by cords attached to the subject's body by small hooks which pierced the flesh. This was a real practice and ritual that desert Indians endured.
Interestingly, it also transferred over to the extreme body modification practitioners. I did see a documentary of a young woman undergoing this suspension, the same sort of thing that was depicted in the Richard Harris film. Not exactly for everybody. Not for me.
I have also seen people, both male and female, getting pierced in places where it must be very painful, tongue and nipples. I also know people with genital piercings. I wonder if this is not another rite of passage as well.
Of course at one point, getting a tattoo was a kind of rite of passage. Especially when tattooing was one in the more basic and painful manner.
A few years back as well, bungie jumping, from bridges, cranes, and other structures was an activity that some did decide to try. I think in many ways it too is or was sort of a rite of passage. And it was not an exclusively male practice.
In part, the warrior macho code is a little more controlled in most of North American and European society, but it is far from gone. Prison and gang and even military culture and other macho subcultures still have the rite of passage, endure to prove you are man enough or tough enough  or have the 'stuff' to do this.
Why? To prove ones self I suppose. Society still has its rituals, but these are toned down a tad.
Universities used to even have pledges go through that personal little thing called hell week.
Nice video btw. But the one with the young woman getting pierced and hung up by ropes to me topped it.
Ryder13