Interestingly, only female velvet ants exhibit this ultrablack coloration. The winged males are less dark, possibly because they rely on flight to avoid predators. One might expect that such dark ...

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 ...

without the easy option of flying away from danger. But where flight muscles would be are actually bulky leg muscles, making these insects quick and strong. In 1977, scientists found that when chased, ...

A velvet ant bite like “hot oil from the deep fryer” delivers an array of peptides that inflicts pain on insects and mammals alike.

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 ...

BRASILIA, Brazil – A new study has revealed the complex makeup of an ant found in South America that can absorb nearly all visible light. Researchers analyzed the velvet ant’s exoskeleton and ...