Americans Have a Hard Time Identifying Stinging Insects

Photodisc/Thinkstock(JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md.) — Raise your hand if you were ever stung by a flying insect.

A lot of people can admit to that but as a new study shows, many aren’t able to identify just what kind of bug stung them.

Scientists at the Malcolm Grow Medical Clinics and Surgery Center at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland decided to conduct an experiment to test people’s knowledge about stinging insects.

The 640 participants from four areas of the country, most of whom had been stung at least once in their lives, were asked multiple choice questions by being shown pictures of four stinging insects — honey bees, yellow jackets, hornets and wasps —  and two different nests.

Only two in 10 got all the questions right with half answering three of six questions correctly. About 10 percent answered them all wrong.

Although the experiment might not have seemed all that important, study author Dr. Troy Baker contends it’s crucial that people become better educated about stinging insects because doctors need accurate information to treat severe allergic reactions.

Learning about stinging insects is as easy as looking it up in a book or more conveniently, the Internet.


Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio

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