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| Red Velvet Ant aka "Cow Killer" (approximately 1.5" long) |
Mutillidae are a
family of
wasps whose wingless
females resemble
ants. Their
common name velvet ant refers to their dense hair which may be red, black, white, silver, blue, or gold. Their bright colours serve as
aposematic signals. They are known for their extremely painful
sting, facetiously said to be strong enough to kill a
cow, hence the common name
cow killer or
cow ant is applied to some species. Unlike a real
ant, they do not have drones, workers, and queens. However, velvet ants do exhibit
haplodiploid sex determination similar to other members of
Vespoidea (JH Hunt 1999).
The earliest-known velvet ants are specimens from the
Dominican Republic preserved in
amber some 25 to 40 million years ago.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from
Velvet ant)
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