!Saw this bug/insect/spider? on a ranch in Santa Ynez, CA. Pretty fast moving-this was the only photo I could get. The creature is the thing in the photo that looks like two puff balls on a very black body. (The smaller puff is the front of the body.) Maybe a bumble bee? Did not appear to have wings.
1 Answer
Perhaps it was a species of velvet ant (a type of wasp from the genus Dasymutilla). The females lack wings, and it appears like what you describe and vaguely see in your image.
Here are some photos:
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