Cavedale RhônesCame across a Velvet Ant today. Cute little bug that is not an ant, but a wingless wasp with a serious sting. It is nicknamed “Cow Killer”, so you don’t want to mess with them! #Insects
AI6YR Ben@ai6yr You can test it if you want 🤣🫣. According to my 8 year old grandson, the African version which has red fur, is the real Cow Killer. He is a student of dangerous stuff in the world. 😉
W6KME@CavedaleRhones @ai6yr good thing they are such chill things, because they're everywhere here.
@W6KME @CavedaleRhones We have Tarantula Hawks, which I steer clear of. They have a reputation for dispensing immense pain.
@W6KME @silentLurker @CavedaleRhones
HAHAHAHA someone actually got stung by every single one of these insects for this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt_sting_pain_index
h/t @emily
neville park@ai6yr @W6KME @silentLurker @CavedaleRhones @emily He sadly passed away in recent years (from Parkinson's, not being stung). In one of his last published papers, on giant red velvet mites and what eats them (https://doi.org/10.1636/JoA-S-21-019 
), he described taste-testing one:
> Our own species is a generalist predator that eats a wide variety of animals as food. For this reason, and to grasp an idea of how a mite might taste to other generalists, one of us (JOS) sampled a Willcox mite. After biting the mite with my front incisors, an immediate, overwhelmingly bitter, astringent, and spicy taste exploded throughout my mouth. Within seconds, I spit out the mite and its juices. The chewing never progressed back of my front teeth and the tip of my tongue; nevertheless, the bitterness was detected nearly instantly in the very back of my tongue and lingered for about an hour. To cross-check for bitterness using another species of giant velvet mite, I sampled a fresh mite from Limpopo province of the Republic of South Africa (23°39′51″S; 27°48′35″E; 840 m) – the taste was identical to that of the Willcox mite.
A real one to the end.
Big, bad, and red: Giant velvet mite defenses and life strategies (Trombidiformes: Trombidiidae: Dinothrombium)
Giant velvet mites, the largest living mites, are a familiar sight when they are present above ground, usually after the first summer rains, in warm arid areas. Despite their often-conspicuous presence in enormous numbers, little is known about their basic biology, life history strategies, or predators. The emergence of Dinothrombium magnificum (LeConte, 1852) in southern Arizona, USA usually occurs after the first summer rain that exceeds 1 cm. Of the 17 species of vertebrate predators offered velvet mites, only those that quickly engulf their prey intact (horned lizards and toads) successfully preyed upon the mites. Even those ate only one or few before rejecting subsequent mites. Of the 12 species of insect predators and 11 species of other arthropod predators offered mites, only the larvae of antlions were possibly meaningful predators. Nevertheless, antlion larvae only rarely succeeded in puncturing the rubbery integument of a mite and killing it. When sampled by an author, a velvet mite produced an exceedingly bitter, astringent, and spicy taste that endured in the mouth for about an hour. Overall, velvet mites appear to have no meaningful predators, likely because of their enormous suite of highly effective defensives: red aposematic coloration, aposematic odor, a tough puncture-resistant integument, unpleasant tasting chemicals on the integument, and exceedingly distasteful internal compounds.
Sam Levine