The Insect Nothing Messes With: Meet the Velvet Ant

Captions provided by CCTubes – Captioning the Internet! SciShow is supported by Brilliant.org. Go to https://brilliant.org/SciShow to get 20% off of an annual Premium subscription.

Big or small, most creatures end up on something else’s dinner menu. But the velvet ant combines a ton of defenses into one very unappetizing package. 

Hosted by: Michael Aranda

SciShow has a spinoff podcast! It’s called SciShow Tangents. Check it out at http://www.scishowtangents.org
———-
Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow
———-
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever:

Jb Taishoff, Bd_Tmprd, Harrison Mills, Jeffrey Mckishen, James Knight, Christoph Schwanke, Jacob, Matt Curls, Sam Buck, Christopher R Boucher, Eric Jensen, Lehel Kovacs, Adam Brainard, Greg, Ash, Sam Lutfi, Piya Shedden, KatieMarie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, Charles Southerland, charles george, Alex Hackman, Chris Peters, Kevin Bealer
———-
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow
Tumblr: http://scishow.tumblr.com
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow
———-
Sources:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29938098/
https://scholar.valpo.edu/tgle/vol21/iss1/1
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29736350/
https://doi.org/10.1016/0041-0101(86)90091-7
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1570-7458.1977.tb02663.x
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.06.053
https://doi.org/10.1080/03949370.2020.1789747

Image Sources:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Velvet_Ant,_F,_Back,_Hot_Springs_Village,_AR_2015-08-20-16.24.57_ZS_PMax_UDR_(21473550145).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Velvet_Ant,_face,_Badlands,_Pennington_Co,_SD_2013-12-31-14.25_(23510610086).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Velvet_Ant_(Mutillidae)_(37264615950).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Female_Velvet_Ant_(Mutillidae)_(37265117370).jpg
https://www.biotaxa.org/rce/article/view/45599
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/gecko-black-silhouette-on-a-illuminated-white-house-wall-gm1053228654-281390739
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/eastern-bluebird-gm488807589-39412764
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.4123
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0112942
https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/fern-circle-gm170619119-6813915
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Velvet_Ant_(15543391776).jpg