Ant colonies are so tightly knit and efficient, they can pass useful knowledge between generations, which some experts believe constitutes a colony ... including the velvet ant, which is ...

Crawling along the underbrush of the tropical savannas of Brazil, there’s a powerful and mysterious insect known as the velvet ant. Actually a kind of wasp, wingless females of this species ...

An international team of scientists recently published detailed studies of a Brazilian species of velvet ant that they discovered to have superblack, or ultrablack, patches. An ultrablack ...

A velvet ant bite like “hot oil from the deep fryer” delivers an array of peptides that inflicts pain on insects and mammals alike.

But scurrying across this land of extreme whiteness is, paradoxically, one of the darkest animals on Earth: a species of velvet ant known as Traumatomutilla bifurca. With its furry exterior and ...

Velvet ant venom is about 25 times less toxic than a honeybee's. Also, unlike social wasps such as Asian giant hornets and honeybees that chemically call in their nestmates to help protect their ...

BRASILIA, Brazil – A new study has revealed the complex makeup of an ant found in South America that can absorb nearly all visible light. Researchers analyzed the velvet ant’s exoskeleton and ...