 sound when handled.
Female (left) and Winged Male Velvet Ants.
Mature velvet ants feed on nectar. Although most species are strictly nocturnal, females some species are sometimes active up to two hours before sunset. It is thought they may not avoid light but rather are active during temperatures which usually occur only after sunset but on cool overcast days could occur earlier.
The male locates a female on the wing and mates. The female then enters an insect nest, typically a ground-nesting bee or wasp nest, and deposits eggs near the larvae or pupae. Her young develops as an ectoparasitoid, eventually killing and eating its immobile host. A few European species have been known to invade and raid bee or wasp nests.
Velvet ants occur worldwide, with some 5000 species, mainly in the tropics. They are especially common in desert and sandy areas, with most of the over 400 North American species found in the Southwestern United States and adjacent parts of Mexico, with others found in generally sandy regions throughout the United States and Canada; the same habitat where their hosts are most diverse.
Spider Wasps. These are one of the better know groups of large Hymenoptera. Most of the Spider Warps are orange and black, black and grey/white markings or just black, i.e., the very strong warning colors. They usually have tinted wings, smooth and shiny body. Their hind-legs are long and always have two prominent spurs. They tend to coil their antennae. Spider wasps are best distinguished from other similar wasps in having (in most species) a transverse groove dividing the mesopleuron (the mesepisternal sclerite, a region on the side of middle segment of the thorax above the point where the legs join) into halves.
Spider Wasp with Coiled Antennae and Mesoplural Transverse Groove Dividing Segment above Attachment of Second Pair of Legs
In South America spider wasp species may be referred to colloquially as marabunta or marimbondo, though these names can be generally applied to any very large stinging wasps). The family is cosmopolitan, with some 4,200 species in 4 subfamilies. All species are solitary, and most capture and paralyze prey, although some species are cleptoparasites of other pompilids, or ectoparasitoids of living spiders. Sexual dimorphism is not marked although females are often larger than the males.
Spider wasps are long-legged, solitary wasps that use a single spider as a host for feeding their larvae. They paralyze the spider with a venomous stinger. Once paralyzed, the spider is dragged to where a nest will be built – some wasps having already made a nest. A single egg is laid on the abdomen of the spider, and the nest – or burrow – is closed.
Spider Wasps Collecting Prey. Images Courtewy Tony Willis.
The size of the host can influence whether the wasp will lay an egg that will develop as a male, or an egg that will develop into a female – larger prey yielding the (larger) females. A complex set of adult behavior can then occur, such as spreading dirt or inspecting the area, leaving the nest site inconspicuous. When the wasp larva hatches it begins to feed on the still-living spider. After consuming the edible parts of the spider, the larva spins a silk cocoon and pupates – usually emerging as an adult the next summer. Some species lay the egg on a still-active spider, where it feeds externally on hemolymph (spider blood). In time, that spider will die, and the mature wasp larva will then pupate.
They usually hunt on ground with the characteristic wing flicking movement. The tarantula hawk is only one of a number of related species of wasps that mainly parasitize spiders and in entomological terms are referred to as parasitoids. They typically hunt out their prey, sting and paralyzed them and carry them back to their nest. The nest is typically a hole in the ground into which they insert one or more spiders upon which they subsequently lay a single egg. After hatching the wasp larva feed on the paralyzed prey until completing development.
Tarantula Hawk-Pepsis spp. This is a species of spider wasp which hun