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Posted by billshorneys on September 06, 2002 at 23:22:48:
In Reply to: Re: Ant Question! posted by Les4toads on September 05, 2002 at 19:08:47:
::Hello Bill. I collect ants in the field during the active season (Spring through Fall). I have used the "chimpanzee" method for years, the old 'stick in the nest' method. It works fine and yess it is "dangerous" because you do stand the posibility of getting stung by the ants. But the ants are whole and healthy. There are other methods, such as baited pit traps, and apple near a nest as bait, or many other ways. The "dirt" buster hand vacuum works great also, but you have to do a slight modification to negate the extra stuff being sucked up also. I collect from 5 to 15 different genus-species of ants to provide the variety of ants in the HL diet. You may have some problem on meeting that variety because Florida is not in the range distribution of HLs. Getting stung by ants is just something you get use to after a while. You will find that you have to watch the ants very carefully to avoid such actions. I do mail order some ants during the winter if HLs in my study group "decide" they do not want to hibernate for the entire cycle. I guess HLs want to see if there is a Santa Claus :) So much for the humor. Lester G. Milroy III
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Lester,
Thanks for your info. In some ways I think FL has more variety of ants than my home state of Arizona. I didn't think Florida had as many Harvestor ant populations as it does till I started looking for them. When I lived in Arizona I would take hikes out in the desert and almost always find Horned Lizards near or at holes of Harvestor ants. I have never seen them eat any other species. We have the Harvestor ants, Carpenter ants right around my house, large black wood ants, tiny black and red ants, sugar ants, fire ants, and many others. What other species of ants do you feed your lizards? Mine are now as crazy about the Harvestor ants as the crickets. I don't feed them many crickets anymore. In AZ I use to examine the droppings of Horned Lizards under a magnifying glass. Most of their diet was the red harvestor ants. Get back and let me know what other ants you feed yours. Thanks. Bill.
