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These colorful, fuzzy Red Velvet Ants ( Dasymutilla aureola pacifica ) aren’t really ants at all – they’re wasps! The females lack wings which makes them resemble ants… definitely had me fooled.Their name “velvet ant” does refer to the wasp’s dense hair which comes in a variety of colors, including white, blue, gold, black, silver, and red as show in this subspecies. The vivid coloration serves as a warning to other animals that these wasps aren’t exactly friendly. In fact, they’re also known as cow killers because their sting is said to be “strong enough to kill a cow,” although this isn’t actually the case… it just really hurts!The earliest-known velvet ants are specimens from the Dominican Republic preserved in amber some 25 to 40 million years ago.

occur worldwide, with some 5000 species, mainly in the tropics.No conservation concerns