When searching for Red Velvet Ants (Dasymutilla occidentalis), keep your eyes focus on the ground because that is where you'll likely see a flash of red as a female runs across a patch of open terrain. All the frantic running usually indicates that a female is hunting for nursery burrows of fellow bees and digger wasps, with the intent of laying eggs on her neighbor's developing pupae.
Finding a burrow, however, can meticulously inspection of every nock and crevice. And then a female must determine if the nest's contents will adequately nurish her offspring. Apparently, such laborious and dangerous work is best done on foot which may explain why female velvet ants lack wings.