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 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 ...

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 ...

In fact, the red velvet ant (Dasymutilla occidentalis) isn’t an ant at all, but a wasp. At around 3/4 of an inch long, it’s the largest of about 400 velvet ant species in the United States.

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.

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.