Adult female Brazilian velvet ant (Traumatomutilla bifurca) shows off her superblack patches. ... [+] (Credit: copyright: Nicole Desnoyers. Image appears here with kind permission.) An ...

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 ...

The sting of a female velvet ant is one of the most painful in the animal kingdom. Now, researchers have discovered that these insects have multiple proteins in their venom that make it ...

And in velvet ants, the answer may be multi-fold. Female velvet ants are parasites of certain species of wasps and bees, seeking out their nests and laying eggs on the helpless pupae. And when ...

It is perhaps why some Brazilians refer to them colloquially as sorcerer ants. A team of scientists led by Lopez recently found that the black parts on female velvet ants were actually ultrablack ...