Pet Velvet Ant

Description

The pet velvet ant is a beautiful wingless wasp with a very powerful sting. Not recommended for children as pets. Buyer beware!

Limit 1 per customer until supply runs out and then we source more in 2025.

Usually, the specimens offered through this listing are Pacific Velvet Ants, Dasymutilla aureola.

Coloration is usually reddish, and sometimes orangey. Size is about 1/2 inch on average. I’d consider them medium in size. The photo on this page is of an Arizona species that is slightly larger but that looks very similar.

If you have an allergy to bee stings, you might want to think twice. Rumor has it that stings from these insects are significantly more painful than stings from honeybees, for example. These fuzzy wingless adult female wasps measure nearly an inch in length and are Dasymutilla species.

We make no allowance for lifespan on these adult, wild-collected insects. Please view the video below for a general tank set up reference. The species in the video do not necessarily match the species being sold through this listing. These are very active, interesting pet bugs–among the best of all pet bugs in terms of activity levels and entertainment in my experience. They may live 0 to 2 years in captivity.

They do have a limited ability to climb glass and so a secure fitting lid is recommended. An inch or two band of petroleum jelly around the top margin of the tank prevents them reaching the lid. This margin may dry out after a few months under a heat lamp if you run one like I do. Room temperature is fine though a 60 watt bulb atop the metal, screened lid of the tank will activate them, especially in the evening hours.

These make wonderful communal tankmates with death feigning beetles, darkling beetles and other tenebrionidae family beetles (see related links below) and thrive in the desert beetle substrate that I custom blend (and offer separately, below).

Velvet ants and desert beetles can live exclusively on the beetle jelly product that I offer below. They provide the moisture and sugar/fuel content to keep them alive and active. Every few days I mist the tank and the jelly product as it does have a tendency to dry out under the heat lamp if you’re running one with a screened lid.

@bugsincyberspace

Ever seen a #velvetant ? #insects #bugs #STEMlife #stem #science #nature #entomology

♬ Black Velvet – Alannah Myles