Despite their name and looks, velvet ants are actually wasps. Many of these delightfully fuzzy insects exhibit bright, contrasting shades of black with red, orange or white. Their bold bodies serve as ...

Nonetheless, the discovery of the ultrablack cuticle in the Brazilian velvet ant, Traumatomutilla bifurca, makes this species unique amongst their relatives, the bees, wasps and ants. Figure 1 ...

The species in question is Traumatomutilla bifurca, a type of velvet ant – which is, somewhat confusingly, actually a species of wasp. Some of these wasps don't have any wings, but they do have ...

Few creatures can tangle with a velvet ant and walk away unscathed. These ground-dwelling insects are not ants, but parasitic wasps known for their excruciating stings. Now researchers have ...

These wasps are one of the darkest organisms in the world. Ultra-black isn’t just a matter of having a lot of melanin. Upon closer examination of the wasp’s exoskeleton, scientists found thin ...

Velvet ants are in fact a family of wingless wasps with more than 7000 species. The researcher Justin Schmidt, who invented the Schmidt sting pain index, described their sting as “explosive and ...

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 ...

The tarantula hawk earned a top score of four, making its sting almost unbearably painful. It's considered about as painful as the warrior wasp's sting, and slightly more painful than that of a velvet ...

The first thing to understand about velvet ants is that they are not, in fact, ants. They're wasps, some of which are wingless, and are named in part for their fluffy exteriors. About the size of ...