Large Velvet Ant

• GeneralIt is not an ant but a wingless wasp; its sting is intensely painful.
• Male and female are so different that for a long time they were described as separate species; they could only be linked by watching them mate.
• The female enters the bumblebee nest, opens the cells and lays an egg on the pupae, which her larva will devour.
• Its cuticle is extraordinarily hard and resistant to the stings and bites of the bumblebees defending the nest, and it also stridulates, producing an audible squeak when disturbed.
• It is not an ant despite the name: it is a wasp with extreme sexual dimorphism, the female wingless and covered in velvety hair and the male winged.
• The female enters bumblebee nests and lays her eggs on the pupae; the larva develops as an ectoparasite, eating the pupa from the outside.
• It parasitises mostly male pupae, and under experimental conditions it has been recorded dispersing up to twenty metres in a week and invading nests of different species.
• The sting of females in this family is proverbially painful, and their cuticle is so tough that it resists being crushed.

Habitat & environment

Meadows and sandy ground with bumblebee nests

Sources consulted: Insects (2019), primer registro de parasitación sobre Bombus breviceps; revisiones de biología de Mutillidae