By Katrina Miller 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.

The email from Trip Lamb, biology professor at Eastern Carolina University, said, “As a velvet ant sting survivor, you may appreciate the attached.” The attachment was a scientific paper ...

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 ...

The wasp species known as the "velvet ant" has a pattern of white and ultra-black coloration. © shrike2 via iNaturalist under CC BY-NC 4.0 The Caatinga is a stark ...

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 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 ...

Few creatures can tangle with a velvet ant and walk away unscathed. These ground-dwelling insects are not ants, but parasitic wasps known for their excruciating stings. Now researchers have ...

Again, these are not cuddly creatures! Panda ants are also called velvet ants due to their plush fur, which comes in different colors for the males of the species. See one of these impressive ...