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Project Noah Nature School
Dasymutilla Occidentalis
While called "ant," it is actually a wingless female wasp that can inflict a painful sting. So painful is their sting it is said to "kill a cow." They do not, however, kill cows. Although the male wasp has wings, the wingless female is the one most often noticed by people. Seeing this large, wingless wasp scurry about makes most people think that they are seeing a gigantic ant. The most frequently encountered red are not generally considered as pests, they do occasionally invade residences in large numbers. But, when left alone, no harm is done. Their food can include flies, beetles, bees and other wasps.Be aware that if a child (or adult) tries to play with this insect or accidentally steps on one, the resulting sting will surely create a painful lifelong memory. After all the sting of the velvet ant can be severe enough to make someone think that it could kill a cow! Hence, the name "Cow Killer Ant" came to be.
Lone females can be found crawling on the ground, particularly in open sandy areas.
Spotted on Sep 10, 2013
Submitted on Sep 10, 2013
8 Comments
Such a cool picture!! I love it!!
wiisttisd17: Please leave the photo that I took with MY digital camera as the photo for your spotting. You CAN NOT use a photo from the internet, like KarenL and CindyBinghamKeiser stated (even with a reference). It must be a picture that WE take. Even though we talked about using an internet picture in class, with proper citation... Project Noah folks use those actual sightings, dates, times, and locations for research and conservation causes.
Hi there, we request that you only share photographs you have taken yourself here. Aside from protecting the site against potentially infringing another photographer's copyrights, it goes against the purpose of Project Noah which is to share your own wildlife encounters. As the location & spotting date are incorrect this also invalidates the data that we collect & that is used by various research & conservation groups.
Sorry, I was trying to figure out how to get the link right.Its all cleared up now though.
Thank you so much for your understanding! If you have permission from the owner of the image, then you can use it. We just want to avoid any copyright issues.
These wasps are very interesting with a great lesson on misleading common names and appearances.
I've moved this spotting to the Arthropods category for you.
In class we thought that as long as we were able to cite the reference where the photo was copied from, we could use it. Thanks for providing proper feedback on this issue. The original picture that was taken was not very clear. But, we have substituted another picture, taken with a digital camera. THANKS!
I'm glad I didn't know what this thing was when I first saw it otherwise I might of freaked out. Because the first time I saw it , it was less than an inch away from my toes!!!
Hello, this image has been removed as it was found to be owned by another person. Please only upload images that you yourself have taken of live organisms. More information on our FAQ page: http://www.projectnoah.org/faq