Cute panda ant. The panda-ant may look cute, but its sting is painful! Technically not an ant but a wasp, its colors and patters are aposematic, warning other predators to stay away. Only the female is wingless, and despite sometimes being referred to as the “cow-killer ant,” its sting isn’t the most deadly or painful: this title belongs to a type of harvester ant that can kill a two-pound mammal with just six stings.
These wasps, which can be found in Chile and Argentina, are solitary, do not live in colonies or have “nests,” and are not aggressive. However, the panda-ant is parasitic, and lays its eggs on or near other ground-nesting insect larva or pupa; the hatched young then use the larva as a food source.
