Categories

White fuzzy/hair insect — what is it?
Hi, Daniel!
Despite quite a bit of searching around on your great site, I didn’t find an image anything like this (although I confess that I don’t have any idea where to start). My wife and I recently visited the Palomar Observatory in the NE San Diego County mountains, where we saw this critter on one of the walkways. I would have liked to get a better photo, but it turned, I think defensively, to avoid a head-on shot. It’s not real big — maybe 3/4". What is it? And is the white fuzz/hair normal? Thanks!
Dave

Hi Dave,
We noticed you wrote back to us to say you had identified your Velvet Ant on our site before we had a chance to respond. You photo is beautiful. Someone once described this flightless female was as resembling David Bowie. We have a long history of misidentifying what we have thought was the Thistledown Velvet Ant, but this is another species in the genus Dasymutilla.

Related Posts

1. Male Velvet Ant (July 3, 2007)
2. Sacken’s Velvet Ant (June 10, 2007)
3. Not Thistledown Velvet Ant (August 29, 2005)
4. Velvet Ant (July 12, 2009)
5. Velvet Ant from Jalisco, Mexico ()