Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a female, adult, horned toad lizard. She is housed in a ten gallon tank, on repti sand. She is fed crickets and carpenter ants occasionally. She has been pretty lethargic recently, not as active as usual. Shes been doing a "head bob" type thing. She ate six or seven crickets on friday, and today she looks really thin compared to the day after she ate. Could she have spitten up? I havent seen anything in the tank but im a little concerned.
thanks for any advice.

This is sad, you are feeding it crickets and occasionally carpenter ants? Some herps are just not for certain people, and the HL is one. They need a strict ant diet of HARVESTER ants, they need about 90-100% ants. They have to have specific heat and light set ups. Well I hope the HL lives, you need to feed it harvester ants and that is it.... crickets are usually only feed occasionally if ever. You need to research more on HL's.

ok, i know about the ants now, ill let the owner know. (i post on here for my boyfriend a lot of times) i will order some up for him, im the one with the internet access. Now that ive gotten my reaming out for the ants, can somebody tell me what the head bobbing is about? Is it a build up of chitin and maybe impaction is why she is lethargic? or is it acid?

Jim,
From the pic you posted earlier your HL's hip bones were protruding greatly meaning your HL is starving to death which is truly what is sad. If you are going to feed a diet strictly of ants you should feed your HL 2 times daily on large numbers of ants. Ants are low in both fat and nutrition and your HL will require large numbers of them to stay healthy. Their is nothing wrong with offering your HL a varied diet it is natural. When refering to the percentage of ants in the diet the highest is p. solare at 90% and even it has been proven by Wade Scherbrooke that it can be raised with a diet of small crickets with not a SINGLE ANT, hatchling to adult. Carpenter ants of the genus Camponotus are a type of harverster ant their is nothing wrong with feeding them to HL's.

To address the problem, if 7 large crickets were fed to the HL their is a good chance it made it sick. The crickets must be small to medium in size and from a clean colony. Size is what is important.Head bobbing is a normal function of all species of HL both male and female it is for cummunication and reproductive purposes.

Carpenter ants are NOT a type of harvester ant, they are in a completely different subfamily.

I have seen many other ants other than pogonomyrmrex be labeled "Harvester Ants"such as Messor pergandi). I was under the impression Carpenter ants "harvested" plant parts, sweet nectar, and insects(of which I often observe pogos eating as well). Regardless of the type of LABEL you wish to give the ant some HL's still consume it, which was what my point was.

Understood Jeff, it is just that for someone new the HLs and ants it can be very misleading. Pogonomyrmex, Messor and perhaps Pheidole are really the only ants we have here in the states which would appropriately be called Harvester ants.

I stand corrected, I won't use the term "Harvester" so bluntly just for those three. By the way do you know of any locations where I can get any pheidole or camponotus here in southern CA.

Jeff those two genera can be locally very common, Camponotus is esp common once you get up into the mtns. I have found C. vicinus commonnly under rocks and in rotten logs in most foothill areas. Pheidole pretty much the same minus the rotten log part. That said it is pretty much end of the season for miost of these things, I am seeing little Camponotus activity out my way and no Pheidole.

"The term "harvester ants" cover a rather large group of ants of several genus/species. Any of the harvester ant species are good food items for horned lizards. Carpenter ants and termites are also good food items for horned lizards. I can "rattle" off numerous "harvester ants" genus names and that would probably be even more confusing. Pogonomyrmex, a genus name, are the most common of the "harvester ants." They can be found throughout the southwestern United States and Mexico. There are also Messor, Camponotus, Myrmecocystus, Crematogastor, Dorymyrmex, Forelius, Pheidole, Solenopsis (not S. invicta, the non native fire ant), and many other ant genus/species that HLs will eat. The term "harvester ant" means that the ants harvest seeds for their own food source. That is the "short" version of "harvester ants," the horned lizard's main dietary requirement. Lester G. Milroy III"

I'm new to this whole thing too, but perhaps I can offer some thoughts. It could be dehydration if everything else seems normal (other than the diet). I noticed that my HL was acting quite lethargic for a day or two and figured that he must be sick or dehydrated. Hoping for the lesser problem, I sprayed the sand with a moderate amount of water and even simulated rain directly above my HL, which he swallowed as it ran off his head. He has been his usual self since then, but the original problem could have been that he was just feeling lazy for a while. In any event, it wouldn't hurt to give it a try.

It is more then just ants, but the ants are a HUGE part. They need to have it be about 100 degrees on one end of the cage and about 70 degrees on the other. But you have too small of a cage to do so. And water should be sprayed once a day, or just leave a little very shallow (1 cm deep) water dish.
-Jim