While over 100 species of ants live in the Chiricahua Mountains, the velvet ant is not an ant. It is a wasp. This wingless one is a female. Also known as cowkillers, the females enter the burrows of other solitary wasps, deposit their eggs and leave. The velvet ant has a body hard enough to withstand stings by those whose home she enters while hers is a formidable stinger that deals a painful poke. The male velvet ant is less common and, unlike the female, does have wings and does not have a stinger.