This makes the velvet ant’s color what scientists call “ultrablack” or “superblack”. Traditional black colorations reflect around five to ten percent of the light that hits it ...

Nonetheless, the discovery of the ultrablack cuticle in the Brazilian velvet ant ... scarlet or orange patches, as well as silver, gold or white, usually with contrasting black patches.

In the female velvet ant, these microstructures include overlapping stacks of lamellae, or layers of tissue, beneath dense, hair-like setae. Combined with a black pigment, these features in the ...

The velvet ant is the first known ultra-black species of the order Hymenoptera, which includes over 150,000 species of ants, wasps, sawflies, and bees. It’s a rare coloring in the wild ...

insectivorous predators will commonly find themselves faced with black velvet ants with abdomens coated in a flaming orange fuzz. This distribution and colouring make up the Texan mimicry ring, ...

About the size of a board game die, one species of velvet ant is known for its distinct black-and-white markings, which dazzle the eye as the creatures scurry across tropical savanna and a dry ...