Klug's velvet ant
Dasymutilla klugii
Klug's velvet ant looks like a big fuzzy ant, but it is really a wasp. It is the velvet ant people see most often in Texas. Its babies grow up inside the nests of other wasps.
Lives in
South central North America, from Utah to Mexico, in dry places
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Klug's velvet ant about 22 km/h (14 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Velvet ants are not ants at all, they are wasps covered in velvety hair.
2
Its name honours a German insect scientist called Johann Klug.
you asked
Most asked questions about Klug's velvet ant
?Is Klug's velvet ant an ant?
No. It is a wasp that looks like a fuzzy ant.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dasymutilla klugii
- Group
- Wasps and hornets
- Family
- Mutillidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Mutillidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Dasymutilla klugii (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by (c) Justin Williams, some rights reserved (CC BY). CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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