The Velvet Ant Wasps
There's a spot on our driveway we've been watching all this past year because it seems to be some kind of nesting area for Velvet Ant Wasps. These wasps look a bit like ants, but are actually wasps, and they are notorious for their viciously painful stings. We first noticed them last summer when we moved in. The area on the driveway is riddled with small holes that the wasps have dug into the ground and which it appears that they nest in.
The females are the ones who sting and they are, happily for us, wingless and thus they can only crawl. They don't appear to be aggressive; we walk over the area several times a day and they have never bothered us.
Here's a female:
The males are much brighter in color and they have black wings. Up until about a week ago, we had only seen the females. This past week, though, there are few females to be seen; instead the area is filled with the males who fly in irregular patterns just above the ground. We've seen some of the males wrestling with one another.
The female wasps are parasitic. They lay their eggs in dens of other kinds of insects, where their emerging young feed on pre-pupae, pupae, ootheca, eusocial cells, and cocoons. When the young have matured, they leave the nest to find a mate (http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/wasps/mutillidae.htm).
Though the Velvet Ant Wasps are generally solitary, it appears that the ones in our driveway are not. In the evenings, the ground in this area is covered with a layer of the males who crawl and swarm around. I find it difficult to walk over and through them, even though I know that the males don't sting and the few females that remain there are not aggressive.
The males are extremely difficult to photograph since they are constantly in motion on the ground or air and move in unpredictable directions.
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| Velvet Ant Wasp Den |
The females are the ones who sting and they are, happily for us, wingless and thus they can only crawl. They don't appear to be aggressive; we walk over the area several times a day and they have never bothered us.
Here's a female:
 |
| Female Velvet Ant Wasp |
The males are much brighter in color and they have black wings. Up until about a week ago, we had only seen the females. This past week, though, there are few females to be seen; instead the area is filled with the males who fly in irregular patterns just above the ground. We've seen some of the males wrestling with one another.
 |
| Male Velvet Ant Wasps |
The female wasps are parasitic. They lay their eggs in dens of other kinds of insects, where their emerging young feed on pre-pupae, pupae, ootheca, eusocial cells, and cocoons. When the young have matured, they leave the nest to find a mate (http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/wasps/mutillidae.htm).
Though the Velvet Ant Wasps are generally solitary, it appears that the ones in our driveway are not. In the evenings, the ground in this area is covered with a layer of the males who crawl and swarm around. I find it difficult to walk over and through them, even though I know that the males don't sting and the few females that remain there are not aggressive.
The males are extremely difficult to photograph since they are constantly in motion on the ground or air and move in unpredictable directions.
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