Thistledown Velvet Ants from Baja California, Mexico

bugman

January 6th, 2010 at 12:04 am

Categories

Ant, white fur
January 5, 2010
Found these ants on the beach of Nopolo about 5 miles south of Loreto. About 1/2 inch in lenght brillant white fur in the sun light.
they appeared to be bits of white fluff blowing in the breeze.
one of them bit me and it hurt like heck
Kevin Kirkman
Loreto Baja Sur California, Mexico

Thistledown Velvet Ant

Dear Kevin,
We are very excited to have a new species of Velvet Ant for our website. This appears to be a Thistledown Velvet Ant, Dasymutilla gloriosa. Velvet Ants are actually flightless female wasps, and they can produce a painful sting. We suspect you were stung and not bitten. According to BugGuide: “Female lays eggs in burrows of sand-wasps, such as Bembix. The larvae feed on larvae of the wasp and the food provided by the adult wasps. Pupation occurs in larval chambers of host.“ Back in 2005, we received the following correction for some Thistledown Velvet Ant images we erroneously identified: “I’ve just discovered your excellent site (directed there by “This is True”), and as a hymenopterist have a few comments: All of the “thistledown velvet ants” shown are actually Dasymutilla nocturna, not Dasymutilla gloriosa. The latter has the erect hairs somewhat sparser and more “untidy”, the body is a reddish brown, not black, and all the hairs are whitish (no black hairs), so the legs look whitish. I hope these comments are useful. Denis“ Your Velvet Ants have erect sparse hairs and white legs, so we are relatively confident we are correct this time in saying they are Thistledown Velvet Ants.

Thistledown Velvet Ants

Thanks for the info, interesting these are wasps not ants, they look like ants, I have more pictures if you want them just send me a email address to send them to, my thumb is still aching a day after being stung
KK