I was doing an inspection of a sandy construction site and then I saw her scampering across the ground.
I know you. I know what you do. And I'm going to let you walk right on by.
Meet the Cow Killer, or Velvet Ant. We only see them occasionally in Maryland, but if you go to a place with warm water and hot sandy soil, you will probably find velvet ants. And they sting. Big time. Which is because they aren't actually ants at all, but wasps. Nasty crawling wasps!
Much like the honey badger (see how I worked that in?), the velvet ant don't play. And like its cousin the yellow jacket, the velvet ant can sting repeatedly, and it does. Luckily, the velvet ant's venom is about 10% as strong as the yellow jacket's - so in reality it's not a cow killer at all.
Now...that being said....it whallops a real punch, registering three out of four on the Schmidt Sting Pain index, and the Starr Sting Pain Scale, basically more painful than a yellow jacket and less painful than the truly awful bullet ant. Or as Schmidt describes it, "like pouring acid on a paper cut."
The velvet ant prefers loose sandy soil near fresh water. Like most insects, it shows up because the habitat is available. Killing velvet ants is a really short term solution to their presence, as long as there is loose sand for them to live in........so please give them a wide berth!
And if you want to watch some dumbasses getting stung by bullet ants, and who doesn't?, then watch this.