Velvet Ants (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae) from Chhattisgarh, India

Mutillidae is a cosmopolitan family of aculeate hymenoptera. They are commonly referred to as 'velvet ants' because of the appearance of the dense hair that covers their bodies. They exhibit strong sexual dimorphism. The males are winged (rarely brachypterous or apterous) and possess a normal apocritan mesosoma, while the females are entirely apterous, and most of them exhibit complete fusion of the sclerites (Brothers, 1995). Even though Mutillidae are distributed in all biogeographical regions, their greatest diversity occurs in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. They are commonly found in desert and sandy areas.