Velvet Ant help

[Survivor7]

Thanks Peter, that's a lot of good info I'll take into consideration. I might try a small desk lap for now. It won't put out a lot of heat but I do have her in a small tank. She vanished again tonight so I assume she is back under the cap. She has really earned her name Spook I'll just try to relax more and let her do her thing.

 

[d17oug18]

i would love to get a male and female of these just to see the life cycle! especially if there seen in s cali!!! How do i find these little buggies =)

 

[What]

Males are seldom seen but will come to lights and can fly, I think I have one or two in my pinned collection (or...in a cup of things to be pinned, lol). Females are, in all species I know of, wingless and most species' larvae are parasites of ground dwelling bee and wasp larvae. You would likely not be able to witness their life cycle...

And yes, the females are common in SoCal, if you know where and how to look.

 

[yen_saw]

If your referring to the insects under the family Mutillidae, I have not heard of anyone keeping them. To my knowledge, they have the second-most painful sting in the U.S.(the tarantula hawk wasp is the first).

Yes from what I have heard from people who've stung by one i'm just glad to have avoid getting stung so far. The size of the stinger from a dead red velvet ant.

I kept the red velvet ant on a layer of sand with a piece of bark. Feeding them honey or small piece of fruits like pear and grape. They usually live for a long time, at least 6 months in captivity.

 

[Survivor7]

That's a beatifully colored velvet ant Yen. I've seen a couple pics of blue ones as well that are gorgeous

 

[yen_saw]

Thanks, i think those are Dasymutilla occidentalis, probably the largest velvet ant in the US.

 

[yeatzee]

Bump

I caught one the other day and put it in a cup up stairs before heading off to a movie. I came back and the dang thing escaped some how! I searched and searched but couldn't find it.... sure enough yesterday I was sitting on the kitchen table down stairs and it just casually crawled by

So I should pick up some sand and keep her in a critter keeper and im good to go?

 

[zonbonzovi]

Beautiful shots of a cool native, Yen.

yeatzee, they're pretty easy to keep. I've only seen them in sandy areas in the South & Southwest(and a really cool black & white beastie in Costa Rica). I still have one from Peter that lives in a communal desert beetle tank. Very comical to see her sharing a fruity snack with a beetle many times her size, without a care.

 

[yeatzee]

Beautiful shots of a cool native, Yen.

yeatzee, they're pretty easy to keep. I've only seen them in sandy areas in the South & Southwest(and a really cool black & white beastie in Costa Rica). I still have one from Peter that lives in a communal desert beetle tank. Very comical to see her sharing a fruity snack with a beetle many times her size, without a care.

Well i just got her cage setup with a small "bowl" I made from a bottle cap dug into the sand filled with a syrup and water mix. She immediately chugged my concoction and dug a couple holes next to a stick I added

I don't want her to die but man could I get some incredible shots of her if she did!

As a side note, I went out to get the sand from where I caught her originally and sure enough I spotted a male! Beautiful insect, a bright red-orange color. I went in to catch it but it was way to skiddish. Acted much like those extremely hyper wasps that are always fidgeting and moving about. Tomorrow I plan on going out with a net and trying again

 

[Survivor7]

Any luck with the male?

 

[yeatzee]

Any luck with the male?

unfortunately no. Im going to keep trying though

 

[Peter Clausen]

Males come to blacklighting setups in good numbers. You might try that. It's difficult (for me) to identify the arriving wasps as velvet ant males, especially to species, but if you know what you're looking for it's probably the best way to obtain males.

 

[yen_saw]

Beautiful shots of a cool native, Yen. ...

Thanks. Have been able to see more this season, seems like drought in Texas not stopping them.

unfortunately no. Im going to keep trying though

All the best. I have seen some males hovering arond low grass sandy area recently. Good thing is male won't sting.

One of the Timulla sp i found recently.

 

[GreenOasis]

That D. sackenii is the only one I've seen of the species. It was collected in S. California. I do hope to get more in soon. The only one I have presently is a very unusual red and black one collected in Arizona. My daughter's pet "Ruby" died recently. She was a SE "cowkiller".

OMG! I had no idea people kept these things as pets! I just saw my first "cow killer" a couple of weeks ago & hubby gets freaked out about them (he grew up with the horror stories of them killing cows here in Oklahoma). He doesn't want our little girl to get stung by one (or any of us, for that matter), so...even though this is the first time we've seen them (and we've seen THREE now), we've been killing them so that they don't "get" Emily.

If I'd known y'all were interested in them on here, I would've put 'em up for grabs in the classifieds! Guess I'll have to keep an eye out for more.

Hey Peter, do you have any pics of the male cow killers? I think I've had a ton of males hanging around my mint that has gone to flower! Every time I go out there I see winged wasps on them, and they don't look like the usual mud daubers. :blink: If that's the case, we might have to work out a deal of sorts! (Got any vinegaroons?)

 

[GreenOasis]

Oh, and I thought they were cute, too...all red & black...but, with hubby freaking out, I knew that we couldn't "keep" any of them.

I'll have to show him pics of that stinger, though...the common rumor here is that the stinger is "as long as the abdomen". :blink:

 

[Malti]

unless they were in the house, I don't know why you'd kill them - seeing that a harvester ant, yellow jacket and honey bee are more toxic.

http://www.walterreeves.com/gardening-q-and-a/velvet-ant-severity-of-stings/

damn I so wish to have one...maybe someone manages to breed them in captivity.

 

[GreenOasis]

Because they have an extremely painful sting, we have a 4-year-old and they were right outside our house on the back porch. We often run around shoeless or wearing flip-flops or sandals, so...better safe than sorry (especially with our 4-yr-old, who is allergic to EVERYTHING.)

I should also clarify that when I say "hubby freaked out"...he did NOT literally jump around doing the happy dance & screaming like a girl...actually, he just had one of the boys get a cup & catch it (for positive ID, since that was the first one), so that it wasn't crawling around potentially stinging someone...but he did say "No" about keeping them.

We are fine with most bugs around the house, except the worst of the worst (when it comes to stings, bites, etc.)...so we don't like having things like recluse spiders, brown or black widows, scorpions, mosquitoes, hornet, wasps & cowkillers...all of which are prevalent here. We need MORE bees, not less, so we leave them alone. And while we occasionally get startled by the odd giant wolf spider dashing across the floor, we usually just shoo them out the door or let them go on their merry way...hoping they will keep the widows & recluse spiders at bay.

One of the boys caught a GIGANTIC "grass spider" (actually, I think they are usually called garden spiders or nursery web spiders), and I had planned to take a pic and show y'all, but they released it before I could. I thought it was a big ol' momma wolf spider at first, but it had the tell-tale "sunflower seed" stripes on its abdomen, so I was totally shocked...it was the biggest grass spider I'd ever seen! It's abdomen looked like a grape! :blink: Makes me now wonder if all the ones I'd seen before were just males. :huh:

 

[Peter Clausen]

Good stuff, GreenOasis! I had a couple (4) desert millipedes crawling around the kitchen floor the other night after I had put them in a temporary (and inadequate) container for shipping the next day. Roxanne wasn't too thrilled to find them loose when she came out to get her coffee, barefoot in the morning. She's not at all keen on slugs, worms or "worms with legs". She told me that I owe her big time and that diamonds should fix this.

There are SO many different kinds of hymenoptera buzzing around, but here's a nice shot of a male cowkiller: http://bugguide.net/node/view/63327

I caught an Oregon velvet ant two weekends ago. I need to post a photo of it on bugguide, but I think I'll go there now and see if it is represented yet (I'm guessing no).

 

[Survivor7]

I got mine a new cage this week and got her set up in it. When I tried to get her into a cup to transfer her she freaked out and started chirping. Cutest sound from an insect ever

 

[yen_saw]

OMG! I had no idea people kept these things as pets! I just saw my first "cow killer" a couple of weeks ago & hubby gets freaked out about them (he grew up with the horror stories of them killing cows here in Oklahoma). He doesn't want our little girl to get stung by one (or any of us, for that matter), so...even though this is the first time we've seen them (and we've seen THREE now), we've been killing them so that they don't "get" Emily.

It would be better to let your kids learn to avoid this insect or put on a boot, you can kill more but they will always be out there.

I have collected more!

I got mine a new cage this week and got her set up in it. When I tried to get her into a cup to transfer her she freaked out and started chirping. Cutest sound from an insect ever

That's actually the sound when they're in distress. Sorry don't mean to hijack your thread.