What is The Panda Ant?
Ants are small insects that bite. There are many varieties of ants and one of them that is very interesting for us to talk about today is the panda ant or in scientific language it is called Euspinolia militaris. These ants are similar to pandas hence the name “panda ants”.
Euspinolia militaris is an insect native to Chile. We call them ants, even though Euspinolia militaris is not an ant at all but a wingless wasp from the “Mutillidae” family.
These panda ants are related to the Red Velvet wasps/ants from North America. These wingless ants or wasps are also known as “Cow Killers”.
Terrible isn’t it! These are small insects but can kill cattle. Actually, it doesn’t make the cow die, but the sting is very painful and can make your cow fall in the spirit of eating it. It’s even scarier than that.
The wasp without wings is not a tame animal that you can pet. Better, even though the color is beautiful you never maintain it. It can sting up to several times.
It looks normal, it’s velvety in color but looks like a cut on the color side. but the sting is very confusing. These are solitary ants, they do not live in a nest together with other ants. The female of this wingless wasp usually crawls around the flower to collect the nectar.
But Euspinolia militaris will kill other smaller insects around the flower, including caterpillars that may be there. While the male will be calmer, he eats flower nectar.
In the family Multillidae, the male wingless wasp or Euspinolia militaris is much larger than the female. but they both look similar.
However, male panda ants can identify female panda ants by their color. Once a female flies over it, they can easily identify it. Then the male ant will lift it into the air to mate. when they are married, then they will go to the ground.
Usually, there they dig a beehive in the ground. then they lay their eggs in each pupa of the nest. Larva that are placed will then eat the host. One Euspinolia militaris can lay up to 2000 eggs and live up to two years.
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Velvet ants have a distinctively high pitched voice, their voices vibrating shrillly when disturbed. But in general he kept quiet.
That’s a glimpse of the panda ant which is scientifically called Euspinolia militaris. This is a wasp ant with a large size even including the largest ant in this world that has ever been found.