Antics

Last weekend, I went home, and found some cool bugs. If you knew what I found roaming around my kitchen floor, you'd think that I reside 1,000 miles south of where I actually live.

Image stolen from Flickr.

The species Pseudomethocha oculata resembles a typical ant, except its body is red, it is hairy, and its last segment bears a black and yellow stripe pattern. At first glance, I thought that the insect was striking, but still an ant, and, thus, not anything special to contribute to my collection for class.

But, lo, behold! It is not an ant! Well, it has "ant" in its name but is not actually an ant. This specimen is commonly known as a velvet ant, belonging to the family Mutillidae, as opposed to the classic ant family Formicidae. Mutillidae is a family of more than 3,000 species of wasps whose wingless females resemble large, hairy ants. They are known for their extremely painful sting, said to be strong enough to kill a cow (some species within this family are commonly known as cow killers or cow ants). (Citation: Wikipedia --> JH Hunt 1999). Woah!

If I had known anything about wasp morphology when I spotted this little guy, I would have been able to easily recognize the key morphological characteristic that separated this from the classic ant family. Ants have three main body segments. Usually, between body segments 2 and 3 there is a small bump in the space between the segments called a petiole. Mutillidae females never have petioles--this is one of their distinguishing characteristics.

This particular velvet ant species is normally found in the southeastern United States. Valerie had mentioned that we normally only see these guys during our Florida trip. Any idea what might have brought this stinging creature to the floor of my kitchen in Long Island, New York?