"Cow killer" found in county

MANASSAS, Va. -- They’re not completely unheard of in the area, but Chris Scott’s recent encounter with the red velvet ant was the first time he’d seen one.

“I was getting into my car, and I looked down and saw this bright red thing run by my feet,” said Scott, who has lived in his house on Gateshead Lane in the Manassas area for 24 years.

Scott trapped the bug, also known as a “cow killer,” beneath a paper cup and ran back into the house for a Mason jar.

“It was something I’d never seen before. It was big,” Scott said of the inch-long red-and-black fuzzy bug that is really a wasp.

The red velvet ant earned the nickname because of its potent sting, said Eric R. Day, an entomologist and manager of the Insect Identification Lab at Virginia Tech.

“The velvet ant, called the ‘cow killer,’ is native to Virginia and is found typically in sandy areas, often near rivers. They are parasites of ground-nesting bees and, as you know, can give a sting that hurts right much,” Day said of the insects that are common in the deep south and southwest.

While they are not prevalent in Northern Virginia, Day sees them often in his work.

“It’s not really common. Maybe once a year, a sample gets sent in. I’ve never collected one, but nonetheless we’ve had a fair number of them sent in over the years,” Day said.“They’re kind of spotty this far north, but it’s just something the average person is not likely to come across.”

Day said there are other species of velvet ants, but the cow killer garners all of the attention.

“The red-and-black one is the one that gets noticed because it’s big, but there’s a lot of smaller species,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll luck out and see the males coming to lights at night. The males look just like the females, but they can’t sting and they have wings. The females are wingless,”

Thomas Bolles, the environmental educator of the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service’s Prince William unit, said that although the wasps’ stings are vicious, people will be fine if they leave the bugs alone.

“For the most part, unless they’re disturbed, they tend to be fairly non-aggressive,” Bolles said.

The critters that won’t be fine in coming in contact with the red velvet ants are bumble bees, Bolles said.

The cow killers lay their eggs on ground-nesting bees’ eggs and the wasp’s larvae feed on the host larvae or pupae, Bolles said.

“They’re a problem for bumble bees. Bumble bees tend to be the main thing that they destroy in the area,” he said.

As adults, cow killers are nectar feeders, Bolles said.

Senior Reporter Keith Walker can be reached at 703-369-6751.