Covered in coarse orange and black setae, Dasymutilla occidentalis, or the velvet ant can be found in grassy fields or on the edges of forests in the Eastern and Western portions of the United States. The common name ‘velvet ant’ is rather misleading as the insect is actually a member of the Mutillidae family, which encompasses over 3,000 species of wasps. It is also known as the ‘cow killer’ or ‘mule killer’ in response the female’s painful stinging abilities. Although, the level of pain is comparable to a bee sting and will not likely kill.
In terms of appearance, both male and female ants display the orange and black stripes. They have stridulatory organs to create a shrill chirping noise. The wingless female has a fused mesothorax and metathorax with at most two segments. Oppositely, the winged male has three unfused mesosomatic segments. Even from birth the two sexes differ as the males have a single copy of each chromosome while the females have two copies of each chromosome. The velvet and is a solitary creature and remains docile unless feeling threatened. Females produce a warning sound when this
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The Mutillidae family often experiences sexual dimorphism, meaning the males and females have such distinct characteristics that mating may be inhibited. Varying size and color has shown to be one of the biggest hesitations in mating. After a female has mated, she forces her way into an already inhabited ground-nest. She then will lay her own egg next to an existing pupa. When the velvet ant egg becomes a larva it will first consume the food inside the ground-nest and then prey on the neighboring pupa or larva. Because of the immediate access to nutrients, the species has a strong survival rate throughout it’s development stages. This process has been noted to occur in ground-nests such as the cicada killer wasp. Males are a result of unfertilized eggs and females are a result of fertilized