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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Hexapods (Hexapoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies (Hymenoptera) » Aculeata - Ants, Bees and Stinging Wasps » Spider Wasps, Velvet Ants and allies (Pompiloidea) » Velvet Ants (Mutillidae) » Sphaeropthalminae » Dasymutillini » Dasymutilla
Photo#73528
Velvet Ant - Dasymutilla - female
Copyright © 2006 David Bygott

Velvet Ant - Dasymutilla - Female
Ruby, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, USA
August 28, 2006
Size: c.20mm
This velvet-ant was very busy around a colony of Cicada-killer wasps I was watching. Photo shows her close to a wasp burrow. When she found a wasp burrow she would pause pering into the entry for a while, and then she might run away or might go inside for a few minutes. I caught her and released her at the mouth of a burrow that a wasp had just entered. She went tentatively in and then ran like hell, a moment later the wasp emerged!

I'm assuming she is a nest parasite, do you know if her larvae eat the cicadas stored by the wasp, or the wasp grubs themselves?
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Contributed by David Bygott on 28 August, 2006 - 2:13pm
Last updated 12 September, 2006 - 4:08pm

I'd say
perhaps D. klugii or magnifica, leaning more toward klugii due to the head shape but I don't know for sure.
… Jordan Gesell, 4 June, 2011 - 12:44pm login or register to post comments

I imagine...
this is a Dasymutilla. At least one species is suspected to be a parasite of Sphecius speciosus, and as far as I know all Mutillids are known to be parasites on other aculeate Hymenoptera.
… Nick Fensler, 28 August, 2006 - 4:05pm login or register to post comments

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