Guardian Nature School Team Contact Blog Project Noah Facebook Project Noah Twitter

A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife

Join Project Noah!
nature school apple icon

Project Noah Nature School visit nature school

Velvet ant

Dasymutilla vesta

Description:

These insects are wasps, not ants. Females are wingless and covered with dense hair, superficially resembling ants. The red velvet-ant is the largest velvet-ant species, reaching about 3/4 inch in length. They are black overall with patches of dense orange-red hair on the thorax and abdomen. Males are similar but have wings and can not sting. http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/cimg3...

Habitat:

Lone females can be found crawling on the ground, particularly in open sandy areas. Adults are most common during the warm summer months. Larvae are solitary, external parasites of developing bumble bees.

Notes:

A.K.A. Cow killer. User by the name of ForestDragon helped me identify this one.

Species ID Suggestions



Sign in to suggest organism ID

2 Comments

Jnthurst
Jnthurst 11 years ago

Thanks.

ForestDragon
ForestDragon 11 years ago

This is a Velvet Ant, a species of Wasp (yes they can sting). The females are flightless and resemble large ants. It is most likely Genus Dasymutilla:
http://bugguide.net/node/view/13118

There are a couple of different species that look similar to this one. You may need to do a bit of research to see which ones occur in your area. I am not sure. Hope this helps.

Jnthurst
Spotted by
Jnthurst

Utah, USA

Spotted on May 5, 2012
Submitted on Jul 9, 2012

Related Spottings

Cow Killer Wasp Velvet Ant Cowkiller Velvet ant

Nearby Spottings

Common mullein Diamondback Rattlesnake Spotting Slime mold

Reference

Noah Guardians
Noah Sponsors
join Project Noah Team

Join the Project Noah Team