The velvet ant’s body is extraordinarily strong, the "Iron Man" of the insect world. One study showed that it took 11 times more pressure to crush a velvet ant than a honeybee.

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 ...

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.

A rare 16 million-year-old ant preserved in amber is helping scientists uncover new secrets about one of nature's most elusive insects. The newly discovered species of "dirt ant" -- named for its ...

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 ...

A velvet ant sting is like “hot oil spilling over your hand” – now, scientists have identified molecules in its venom that let it deliver excruciating pain to a variety of other animals.

The team worked with tubes roughly seven nanometers in diameter—about two million times smaller than an ant—and several microns long, or about the length of a dust particle. The method builds on an ...

Watch: The cast of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania share their hopes for fourth film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a high-octane, epic immersion into the Quantum Realm with the MCU’s biggest ...

On the Schmidt Sting Pain index, the red velvet ant’s sting ranks a 3 on a scale of 1 to 4 with 4 being most painful. For perspective, wasp and bee stings rank at a level of 2 on the Schmidt scale.

Meet the Brazilian Velvet Ant, a Rare ‘Ultra-Black’ Wasp That’s So Dark It Absorbs Almost All Visible Light While the distinctive coloration is thought to be a warning to predators, it also ...

While investigating the attack techniques of Velvet Ant, an advanced persistent threat (APT) group believed to be sponsored by China, cybersecurity firm Sygnia discovered in July 2024 that the group ...