As it happens, velvet ants, known colloquially to Brazilians as “sorcerer ants,” are actually a type of wasp, but the females, which are wingless, give the creatures their name.

Velvet ants have enormous stingers ― half their body length ― and the research paper focused on the full defense system of these near-indestructible wasp parasites against a variety of ...

Adult red velvet ants can grow to about 3/4 of an inch in length and are covered with patterns of black and reddish/orange hair. If you see one, it’s likely a female because the females are ...

Crawling along the underbrush of the tropical savannas of Brazil, there’s a powerful and mysterious insect known as the velvet ant. Actually a kind of wasp, wingless females of this species ...

The email from Trip Lamb, biology professor at Eastern Carolina University, said, “As a velvet ant sting survivor, you may appreciate the attached.” The attachment was a scientific paper titled ...

Wasps aren’t normally admired for their looks, but one species—Traumatomutilla bifurca, a Brazilian velvet ant—is unlike any other. It has ultra-dark markings that reflect less than 1 ...

Scientists found that the dark markings on a species of fluffy wasp reflected less than 1 percent of light. By Katrina Miller The first thing to understand about velvet ants is that they are not ...

Velvet ants have enormous stingers ― half their body length ― and the research paper focused on the full defense system of these near-indestructible wasp parasites against a variety of ...

Meet the Brazilian Velvet Ant, a Rare ‘Ultra-Black’ Wasp That’s So Dark It Absorbs Almost All Visible Light While the distinctive coloration is thought to be a warning to predators, it also ...