#mutillidae

Pacific Velvet Ant (Dasymutilla aureola), female, family Mutillidae, Aden, Virginia, USA

This is actually not an ant at all, but it actually a species of wasp. The females are wingless, and thus resemble large furry ants.

Look, I know some of you hymenoptera specialists don't like this explanation, because you consider "ants" to be "wasps" anyways... but just chill the fuck out please. I have to talk to normal people right now...

They have an extremely painful sting!

[VIDEO TAKEN: SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2025 | Video ID: A video of a red and black red velvet ant crawling around and digging in various spots in sandy soil, looking for a good spot for a burrow /End IDs.]

Shoutout to bugs gotta be one of my favorite genders

This is a sona of mine, he doesn't have a name uet but hes a velvet ant 😎

i saw a weird amount of velvet ants last summer on the same gravel path and always around sundown, including the tongue-twisting Bidecoloratilla iberica, some Myrmilla, and this possible Smicromyrme. the recurring idea of 7-8pm as Velvet Ant Time is easily explainable by the fact that they were probably a lot more active and harder to find during daytime, but to this day i have not found a reason for their love of gravel and sand

Pseudomethoca frigida