[Faline]

Mutillidae are a family of more than 3,000 species of wasp whose wingless females resemble ants. Their common name velvet ant refers to their dense pile of hair which most often is bright scarlet or orange but may also be black, white, silver, blue, or gold. Their bright colours serve as aposematic signals. They are known for their extremely painful sting, facetiously said to be strong enough to kill a cow, hence the common name cow killer or cow ant is applied to some species. Unlike a real ant, they do not have drones, workers, and queens. However, velvet ants do exhibit haplodiploid sex determination similar to other members of Vespoidea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutillidae
http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/cimg344.html
http://lancaster.unl.edu/pest/resources/cowkiller.shtml

[Faline]

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[Faline]

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[ZAPPO]

Yeah I've seen those here where I live....don't wanna mess with them...

[ladypilgrim]

Pretty!

[Arkoquisa]

we have them down here in east texas, i hear its sting is BAD, but not dangerous, beautiful creatures. they are very resilient little things too, i may have stepped on one and got stung as a kid, but was never sure if it was one or not, i had seen one at my feet near that time and could find nothing else in the grass, very painful sting
last week i had to explain what they were to some coworkers who found one out in the back of the store, i explained the cow part and they were TERRIFIED of the thing, saying ' i'm going to kill it if it gets anywhere near me", i was trying to pick it up and it didn't do anything, it became scared and ran away from me. i only wish that sissy worked late last night, i was going to throw a snake i caught on him

[NEVERBACKZ]

[kellyhound]

Never seen them and i wanna keep it that way

[juliemd]

damn things are hard as hell to kill. found one in a nursing home i worked at. stepping on it doesn't seem to kill it, finally swept it in a dust pan and dumped it outside.

[xXRockerGuyXx]

They sound like a wind up toy.