It has ultra-dark markings that reflect less than 1 percent of visible light. There are about 8000 velvet ant species in the wasp family Mutillidae, named after their resemblance to large hairy ants.

Yet at first sight, the brain of an ant seems hardly capable of such feats: it is about the size of a poppy seed, with only 0.25m to 1m neurons, compared to 86bn for humans.

Traumatomutilla bifurca, a velvet ant — which is actually a wasp — known for its distinct black and white markings, found in a dry shrub desert in Brazil called the Caatinga. piemags/nature ...

This makes the velvet ant’s color what scientists call “ultrablack” or “superblack”. Traditional black colorations reflect around five to ten percent of the light that hits it, says ...