Strange Orange Ant?

[Sponge]

My mother took this picture of a strange looking ant on our patio and sent it to me.

Sadly this is the only image we have of this ant.

It is low priority but I would appreciate it if you guys could identify this ant's species.

[MaxGen]

That looks like a velvet ant/Cow killer ant. It's not an ant, but rather a wasp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutillidae

[Sponge]

That looks like a velvet ant/Cow killer ant. It's not an ant, but rather a wasp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutillidae

I suspected that, but I thought the wasps were more hairy. I'm inclined to believe you as it doesn't really look like an ant, just strange it doesn't look like most velvet wasps either.

[MaxGen]

there are some that seem to be less velvety, unless you look closely...

http://somethingscrawlinginmyhair.com/2015/04/04/velvet-ant/
http://capemaywildlife.com/_templates/beewaspgroup_velvetants.html