Boy I'm glad we have a real winter here.........tends to keep the jurrasic wasps to a minimum.

I haven't seen anything like that yet but I going to keep my eyes wide open now. Half inch stinger holy crap, sure it wasn't a scorpion?

We have velvet ants here in MD, and it seems they're more abundant these past few years. When I see one (typically in a field, not the woods), I'll stomp it - they are tough to kill. I've never tested their stinging ability, lol.

Fortunately, they are not aggressive and will try to escape from you...

-fsh

Never seen anything like that up here I guess its because our winters, real winters, are usually sub 0 most of the time so it kills all them little buggers.

I seen one here in Illinois a few years back. Didn't remember the black stripes on it though. I just remember trying to find out what it was on the internet.

There are several varieties of the things, different colors and markings. The ones we have around N. Texas are a little more yellowish orange. And yeah. They'll sock it to ya if you mess with 'em.

that is one nasty lookn' little bugger. thank goodness we have the frozen tundra up here in the winter, kills off anything that looks like that. Now as for our state bird, the mosquito, people have been found drained of their blood!

I got hammered by one of those bad boys about 30 years ago. I was going fishing with my dad and we were catching grasshoppers. I saw on of those crawling along and grabbed it. [:@] YOWZER!!!! THAT HURT!!!!!

Never heard of one here in Illinois. After reading your post, if I ever do see one, I guess I will walk the other way.

We call em cow ants round here, and yes i have been stung by one. Luckily he didnt get me that good and i was able to get him off of me. It swoll up pretty good anyways.