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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...