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.

Traumatomutilla bifurca, a velvet ant — which is actually a wasp — known for its distinct black and white markings, found in a dry shrub desert in Brazil called the Caatinga.

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 ...

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 ...

In fact, the red velvet ant (Dasymutilla occidentalis) isn’t an ant at all, but a wasp. At around 3/4 of an inch long, it’s the largest of about 400 velvet ant species in the United States. (I ...

A velvet ant sting is like “hot oil spilling over your hand” – now, scientists have identified molecules in its venom that let it deliver excruciating pain to a variety of other animals.

On the Schmidt Sting Pain index, the red velvet ant’s sting ranks a 3 on a scale of 1 to 4 with 4 being most painful. For perspective, wasp and bee stings rank at a level of 2 on the Schmidt ...

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 ...