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 ...

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 ...

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

To test the effect of velvet ants' colours on predators, scientists carried out experiments with birds where some mealworms were painted red and black to look like the wasp Dasymutilla occidentalis.

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 ...

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 ...