Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey Cable
No I do not keep horned lizards. I would love to but the whole diet thing keeps me from keeping them. It is probably pretty easy now with ants being offered so readily. I checked your site out and really like it. Are you successful at breeding them and do you sell cb offspring? How many ants would a adult eat a week and can you supplement with crickets or meal worms? I am friends with Dr. Montanucci who has successfully kept and bred hl's but not sure what species. He mentioned to me that there is something in crickets that cause some type of infection in the digestive tract of hl's. I keep mostly Sauromalus and really love most U.S. desert lizards. I have been visiting this forum since it started but rarely post. By the way what is your real name if you don't mind?
Tom Greb

Hi Tom,
I don't mind giving my personal info but I prefer to do that via email. If you have a mind to drop me an note and I'll provide any contact info you like.
I have not bred any HLs to date but have every intention of breeding and offering CB HLs to serious hobbyists. I have 4 species currently (all legal). P. Modestum, P. Solare, P. Platyrhinos and P. Cornutum. I am all for protecting wild HLs but I would like to see a sample of each species perserved for the hobbyist where possible. I can understand the sentiment of many folks who would rather just observe them in the wild. My contention with this is that it is not easily done for each species due to time, distance and just difficulty finding them. I like to study and understand their behavior patterns and idiosyncrasies. They are truely fascinating to me at least.

Dr. Montanucci could probably best answer your diet questions. I can tell you what I do and my opinion about diet though. I feed about 95% /- Pogo and various ants of 6 varieties. (P. Rugosus, P. Californicus, Camponotus sansabaenus, M. Andreii and a few others). I feed young grasshoppers as available, usually about 2 per/hl every other weekend (just a few per month but I would feed up to one per day if they were available). I have tried suplementing with mealworms and find them to be poor food for HL's as they don't seem to digest very well, and are warned against for various other reasons by many serious HL enthusiasts. I have tried crickets, but not in any significant numbers. They are readily taken but to me don't seem to be part of a good diet for an HL. (I know there are those who disagree, and I respect that. Jeff and I may try to work up a study this season on CB growth rates on varied diets). I have fed bees, moths and other insects I catch at my black light and they are all relished by the HLs, but this is a more rare offering.
I acquired a few CB solare a while back and have kept track of growth rates (fed mostly on P. Rugosus) for a short period as follows:

Apr 22 May 10
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#1 4.7 g 9.8 g
#2 5.5 g 12.4 g
#3 8.5 g 17.0 g

Diets vary by species though. While the modestum will eat p. Rugosus they are much more enthusiastic about p. californicus. DHLs seem to share that proclivity to a slightly lessor degree. (There is a study available on this).

As to the requirements of a full grown HL per week, there are a lot of variables. What HL species, what size, what type of ant. Typically an adult DHL will eat from 40 to 80 p. rugosus ants per day. Variation can be due to temp, season and just the individuals own requirements. My cornutum has eaten as many as 140 Rugosus in about 1.5 hours but that is not typical even for her.

I have a lot of respect for Dr. Montanucci's work. You have a great resource available there. I have read some of his papers. One of the interesting things he pointed out is that HLs digestive tract seems to require and acid balance for HL health. Without this you can begin to have health problems. I believe ants help maintain that balance in the most natural fashion.

TTYL Tom
Cheers!
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Cables Home
2 Kings 6:15-17

at the end of your post might have been what he was talking about. It has been some time and we usually just discuss it casually, not in any detail. I will shoot you an e-mail.

Cable and Tom-I have found that baby or small super worms do make an excellent offering aside from ants and grasshoppers. In my expereince I found that small meaning an inch long or so superworms are relished, and are digested very well. Again as I have shared with Cable we all kow these little guys are opportunistic and will eat a varity of different insects, even though their main diet consists of ants. Likewise, moths, soft spiders, and other small beetles have been relished by the horned lizads I kept. I think in my discussion with Lester and others I have some distain for using crickets. I am sure there are many species that can eat crickets and do fine, but I have suspicion that several of my DHL's were lost do to a crickets. I shared this with Lester after he had a similar problem and the only thing in our husbandry that we could come up was crickets. So if I do feed crickets at all it is only on occasion, and frankly if you live around an area you can catch an occasional cricket I'd use those before using purchased ones, as some of these company's have been documented as spreading disiease through their crickets. Anyway it's still raining in Texas the temps have not been much over 82 around San Antonio, and I haven't seen a scat or HL yet. My daughter is in Odessa and sge will see if she observe some there. It's been much warmer over there. Anyway if you can find a distributor for small superworms you might use them every once in a while. I have found in my own experience that HOrned Lizards grow quickly when healthy........

Tom, Cable
One thing to keep in mind when discussing the acid situation is that the Myrmicine ants, Pogonomyrmex, Messor, Pheidole etc contain little if any Formic acid which is the acid in question. On the other hand the Formicines, Myrmecocystus, Camponotus etc, are loaded with the stuff, this is esp interesting as most of the ants in this group are primarily nocturnal. while I wholehaeartedly agree that ants constitute a necessary portion of an HL diet, I am not convinced formic acid is the reason.

I didn't realize that Gordon. What is in the sting of a P. Rugosus? I thought that was the acid.
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Cables Home
2 Kings 6:15-17

Canle not exactly sure of the exact composition of Pogo venom, however in most other myrmicine ants I have worked with it is a rather complex cocktail of alkaloids and proteins.

Yeah, its a little joke but an intersting bit of native american history too.

I hope nobody will try this at home as it could easily be deadly.

Near bottom of page
Link
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Cables Home
2 Kings 6:15-17

Very interesting article. I read it quite some time ago.