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  • 2018-04-26 (xsd:date)
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  • Is This a Velvet Cowkiller Ant? (en)
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  • Old images purportedly showing a velvet cowkiller ant received renewed attention in April 2018: These images, as well as a near verbatim copy of the accompanying text, have been around since since they were first shared on Facebook in 2015. We aren't certain if this is where the photographs originated, but the featured insect does resemble a real wingless wasp with a powerful sting. However, the insect was somewhat erroneously identified as the velvet cowkiller ant, which appears to be a combination of two nicknames for the insect, the velvet ant and the cow killer ant. The Facebook post correctly notes that ant is a misleading label for this insect. Dasymutilla occidentalis is a species of parasitoid wasp that mainly lives in the eastern United States: Here's a closer look at a female velvet ant: This wasp's nicknames are self-explanatory for the most part. The ant comes from the fact that the females don't have wings (although the males do). The velvet comes from their fuzzy and bright appearance (although they aren't always red.) But what about the cow killer nickname? Can these wasps really kill cows? This wasp earned the nickname cow killer due to it's extremely painful sting. Although the pain is sometimes described as strong enough to kill a cow, these wasps do not actually hunt, feast on, or even kill cows: The cow killer ant's stings registers a level 3 on the Schmidt sting pain index, a pain scale rating between 1 and 4 that was developed by entomologist Justin Schmidt. Although Schmidt famously allowed himself to be stung by dozens of insects in order to develop his pain scale, we don't have any footage of the entomologist's encounter with a cow killer ant. But don't worry! Schmidt wasn't the only person brave enough (or misguided enough) to purposefully get stung in the name of science. The host of Brave Wilderness, Coyote Peterson, posted a video of him getting stung by a velvet ant on YouTube in 2016: (en)
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