I killed 4 Red Velvet Ants this week.
I have never seen so many red velvet ants. It has been about 4 years since I saw one until this week. Wow these are hard to kill their body is like rock. I punched one 6" into the ground with a 3/4" steel rod about 30 seconds later is crawled up from the hole. It took 2 more tries to kill it. I hit one on the asphalt driveway with a shovel it crunched like glass. I stepped on 1 in the grass over and over many times it never hurt is at all even when I stood on it and spin my shoe around and around. I finally chopped it with the shovel. Today found one struggling to walk across the garden in the soft soil that I tilled 6 hours ago. I had to wait until it walked to a hard surface to kill it. I have moles in the yard I read online moles eat the wasp larva before it hatches. I guess I need a larger family of moles. Is there a spray or ant kill that will kill these when they are still larva in the soil?
Last edited by Dirt Man on Thu Sep 15, 2016 6:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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!potatoes!
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rainbowgardener
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Interesting. I had never heard of them, so I looked them up.
They are big, up to an inch long.
and you are right about how hard it would be to squash them:
"The exoskeleton of all velvet ants is unusually tough (to the point that some entomologists have reported difficulty piercing them with steel pins when attempting to mount them for display in cabinets). " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutillidae
Only the female (wingless) can sting. The male (winged) is completely harmless. The name cow killer has nothing to do with any actual cows being killed. It is just some kind of dramatic reaction to how painful the sting is, as in OMG, that hurts so bad it could kill a mule! In fact Clemson University professor emeritus Don Manley has spent more than 20 years studying insects such as the red velvet ant, and he states that he has "not found an instance of a red velvet ant's sting being responsible for the death of an animal of any kind." It could make your finger or toe hurt like crazy and swell up for awhile, but that's about it.
They are solitary wasps, so are rarely found in big numbers. They are actually pretty harmless in the garden as long as you wear shoes and don't step on one barefoot. The adult wasp eats only nectar and water. The larvae are parasites on larvae of bumblebees or ground bees that have underground nests.
They are big, up to an inch long.
https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef442Velvet ants are not aggressive and will try to escape when encountered, but females have a very painful sting if handled. Females use a long, needle-like stinger concealed at the tip of the abdomen. Many of the velvet ants can produce a squeaking sound when disturbed.
and you are right about how hard it would be to squash them:
"The exoskeleton of all velvet ants is unusually tough (to the point that some entomologists have reported difficulty piercing them with steel pins when attempting to mount them for display in cabinets). " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutillidae
Only the female (wingless) can sting. The male (winged) is completely harmless. The name cow killer has nothing to do with any actual cows being killed. It is just some kind of dramatic reaction to how painful the sting is, as in OMG, that hurts so bad it could kill a mule! In fact Clemson University professor emeritus Don Manley has spent more than 20 years studying insects such as the red velvet ant, and he states that he has "not found an instance of a red velvet ant's sting being responsible for the death of an animal of any kind." It could make your finger or toe hurt like crazy and swell up for awhile, but that's about it.
They are solitary wasps, so are rarely found in big numbers. They are actually pretty harmless in the garden as long as you wear shoes and don't step on one barefoot. The adult wasp eats only nectar and water. The larvae are parasites on larvae of bumblebees or ground bees that have underground nests.
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!potatoes!
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rainbowgardener
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Sorry, I missed the last post on that thread, where your wingless wasp was identified as red velvet "ant." Obviously I was clueless about them as shown by my first post in that thread.!potatoes! wrote:yeah, the only people in danger of death from them are allergic to any wasp/bee/ant sting. and they're pretty mind-their-own-business. seems kind of excessive to just kill on sight.
and rainbowgardener, you'd never heard of them? I posted one in that 'wingless wasp' thread just last week!
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KitchenGardener
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I saw another red velvet ant yesterday about 5 pm walking across the driveway. I was only about 8 feet away it went into the grass and vanished. The grass has lots of organic dead brown stuff I guess the ant went down under everything where I could not see it. I got the garden rake and started raking stuff onto the driveway but never found the ant. This is very amazing I have seen more of these ants in 1 week than I have my whole life. I wonder if this is the time of year they migrate.