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Project Noah Nature School
Nearly completely orange-red velvet ant. Video just added.
Spotted on Jul 17, 2011
Submitted on Apr 28, 2012
4 Comments
Very cool. A wasp like that would stand out. I haven't spotted one yet. Nice capture!
Keep an eye out for males buzzing around. They are often winged and I know by watching Dasymutilla occidentalis that they appear to just be wasps flitting around unless you really stop to look at them. Once I realized what they were, it was much more fun to watch them as they searched for females.
Here is my spotting of a male:
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/847...
Yes. I have two other velvet ant spottings, all 3 are different species. This one was nearly all red. I've seen at least 4 different patterns/species in the yard.
I'm not sure if you realize this, but velvet ants are wasps in the Family Mutillidae. They are called velvet ants because the fuzzy wingless females resemble ants. And you're right, it's very hard to get a good shot of them because they are extremely active. Their young parasitize ground-nesting bees.