Interestingly, although male velvet ants do have some black patches, these are not ultrablack. “We also analyzed males, but they did not exhibit ultrablack coloration,” Dr Lopez stated in email.

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 ...

For instance, why do male velvet ants not have ultra-black pigmentation and instead reflect light at a much higher rate than females? What environmental pressures are responsible for dividing ...

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

One of the most striking examples is the desert-dwelling thistledown velvet ant, which may be mimicking the fluffy white seed cases of the creosote bush, which is found in the same habitats. It can be ...

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 ...

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 ...