Dasymutilla magna

No specific diagnostic features for distinguishing Dasymutilla magna from congeners are documented in the provided sources. The species name "magna" suggests relatively large size within the genus, though this remains unverified. General Dasymutilla characters include: females wingless with dense velvety pubescence; males winged with typically less conspicuous coloration; both sexes with thickened exoskeleton and ability to stridulate by rubbing abdominal segments together.

No specific geographic distribution records for Dasymutilla magna are contained in the provided sources. The genus Dasymutilla occurs across most of North America, with highest diversity in arid regions of the western United States and Mexico.

• Dasymutilla occidentalisLarger eastern North American velvet ant commonly called "cow killer"; shares bright aposematic coloration and wingless female morphology
• Dasymutilla bioculataWidespread North American species subject to recent taxonomic lumping; similar size range and habitat preferences in arid and prairie environments
• Dasymutilla gloriosaExtreme sexual dichromatism with females covered in white thistledown-like setae; males typically colored; demonstrates range of morphological variation possible within genus

• Mutillidae
• velvet ant
• Hymenoptera
• aposematic coloration
• Müllerian mimicry
• wingless female
• solitary wasp
• parasitoid
• Dasymutilla
• North America

• BugGuide
• iNaturalist taxon
• NCBI Taxonomy
• Grasshoppers of Colorado
• Plains Lubber Grasshopper
• Bug Eric: Wasp Wednesday: Dasymutilla bioculata
• The gloriously dichromatic Dasymutilla gloriosa | Beetles In The Bush
• A sting to kill a cow? Red velvet ant, a.k.a. cow killer, Dasymutilla occidentalis — Bug of the Week
• Mutillidae | Beetles In The Bush