Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hah, no its not a question of if HLs need ants.

for all the people who gather their own ants, how do you do it? Cable told me his secrets (actually the entire www) with the little ant traps, but does anyone have success with other methods?

I myself use a very primitive technique (got it off of National Geographic; thanks Chimpanzees) I stick an appropriately sized stick down the target nest and I jab around until I get the ants excited. I tap the ants that bite the stick into a plastic cup, counting as I go. I collect a certain number and feed accordingly, but I have been able to gather 200 ants in about 15 minutes from different nests.

I thought perhaps people might find a thread on this useful, so let us know what you do for ant collection!

thanks!
-Phil

We do about the same thing as you; jabbing a stick into a hole with a large enough colony. Hah. Just thought about the chimps doing that the other day, as I was out collecting. They seem to get agitated pretty fast, clinging about 10 at a time which makes it easier. But instead of a plastic cup, we just store them in a big enough gatorade container. Then keep trying till we get a decent amount (without depleting the whole colony) before moving on. Sometimes we will use a soup spoon if they are swarming outside of their nest, or put something sweet to lure them toward us. There's a nice area we just discovered nearby that has many dirt roads and plenty of open land. Pretty much the motherload to a few different species of ants that our HLs seem to really enjoy. And it's so close that we can just walk there, as needed, for refills. There's enough space to not have to go to the same source for months, it seems.

What time of day do you go out looking? We've tried late afternoons/early evenings... usually it's nothing more than just getting a late start, which means 5:30pm or so. But it's worked out pretty well, surprisingly. Found a lot of ant activity at that time.

Great topic... and very cute HL!

I posted below my "secret" as well. I stake out several ant piles so I am not devoiding a nest from it's workers. Fortunately where I live the ant piles are two to three feet wide with several trails hundreds of feet long, so it is clear they are old established colonies with hunreds of thousands. This is what I do:

I get a potatoe spoon, and a tupperware container with smooth sides and very tiny holes drilled in the top. I then go out to the nests and right in front of the enterance I dig a small spoon size divet in the ground that is an inch or two deep, as I start digging the divet the ants coming into the nest as well as those coming out of the whole get agitated and they just pore out of the hole, when I get 20 or 30 in the divit I scoop them up with a quick stroke of the potatoe spoon, I don't count, but I can easily get 200 or more at a sitting just in a matter of minutes dpending on how wel the hole flows with ants. This technique works for me in Texas and always did in California as well.

I then go home and wet a paper hand towel and wrinkle it up and put dirt in with it with a piece of potatoe and some lettuce and cap it. This usually keeps for 3-5 days very well but I have Solare pigs and they eat 200 in 3 days all the time. I do feed them other insects but more as a treat than a regular regimium. Since this little guy is small I think this would work well for collecting ants, so you might try it. I think the stick down the hole is a little too slow for me, the potatoe spoon works great, if for some reason they don't keep a good flow into the divit I either use the stick down the hole to get them going or I look for another pile. Just don't over do any one pile.........!
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Phrynosoma.com

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signature file edited. [phw 11/14/04]

These are all good methods. I actually use them all at various times depending on the ant species. Each species has different foraging habbits and it makes a difference. The rugosus with their trail making are a slam dunk for the bottle trap. But if you don't need a thousand ants at a time it might not be the best method. I go through 6 or 7 thousand a week so if I didn't have this I'd need to quit my day job for ant collecting.
The subnitidus will attack a stick with a vengance, but these are not common ants.
Californicus are not trail foragers so are more difficult with the trap. But it will work with them if they are out foraging. The stick method also works well.
Mornings and evenings are best, but they need to be warmed up enough to be out gathering food.
If you want to get them aggitated try simply blowing on the nest. This really stirs them up.
Sometimes pouring water down the hole will get them coming out in force too.
Good post Phil!
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Phrynosoma.Com

Just have to throw in something "high tech" (if you can get high tech with ant collection!) lol Sounds odd, but a bug vacuum works really well too. They have to be out though to get them. But I've been able to get 30-50 within about 5 minutes or so with this. (Depends if there's only a few out or more. The more the better and the faster you'll get them). But then again . . . I'm a novice so I needed something that wasn't complicated.

I like the cro-mag chimpanzee method - makes me feel part of the animal world.

Ok, this is a question that has been coming up in our home lately, and I was hoping someone could enlighten, or share their experiences. I know that mixing certain ants together from different colonies can lead to a sort of tribal warfare... where they attack the "enemy" or "invaders" till death. But does this apply to all species? Do any of you guys put ants from different colonies in separate containers when collected? Or do you just mix them all together?

I dont mean mixing californicus with rugosus in one jar, for example.

What I mean is, we have mixed little black ants from different nests with other little black ones from a nest a few feet away (as a test), and they did not stop killing one another until we froze them repeatedly over a period of a day or two. Then, they seemed to somewhat harmonize, and began working together to build an emerged colony. Havent tried this with mixing different nests of californicus together, or mixing different nests of rugosus with each other. Mainly, to avoid the potential killing off of our food supply/wasting the time spent collecting.

Also, have any of you tried feeding your ants cricket food? We just purchased "Fluker's Orange Cube Complete Cricket Diet" for our crickets and mealworms (they come in tiny fruit-like squares supposed to contain water, food, and vitamins for many feeder insects), and decided to try it out on our ants last night as well. They seemed to like it. We had been feeding the ants potatoe, lettuce bits, occasionally a tiny piece of raw chicken (which the rugosus devoured), and some fruit. Does anyone have experience with feeding ants this type of food?

Thats an interesting question.

As a kid I used to mix rugosus from different nests together; (as I discovered that they fought each other) I read in an insect book that each nest has different pheromones, and if an ant doesn't have the pheromones it is viewed as an intruder/enemy. I notice when I collect californicus from different nests, they do attack each other in the cup, but they're lunch in minutes so I don't know to what extent this happens, or if after a while they'll calm down and stop trying to kill each other.

Cable and one other fellow on here were starting some ant colonies, and I wonder what the dynamic would be to add a few (3-5 for starters) workers from another nest to the fledgling colony.

hmmm....

-Phil

Funny you should say this Phil. I was out collecting californicus and got a bunch of pupae with them as they were moving the nest. I was tempted to drop some of them in with the subnitidus queen to see if she would adopt them. But I ended up chickening out because I didn't want anything bad to happen to the new colony.

My friend Joe tells me that the folks at ants alive will mix dirt from two or more colonies when they collect them and this keeps them from going to war with each other. I've yet to try it though.
Maybe some of you folks could give it a shot and report on the outcome?

I feed my ants on apple slices and apple or orange juice in a shallow bottle cap. The absolutely love it and it keeps them hydrated as well.
Cheers!
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Phrynosoma.Com

You are fearfully and wonderfully made, your soul seperates you forever from the animal kingdom......... Just musing on your statement......Cheers!!
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Phrynosoma.com

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signature file edited. [phw 11/14/04]

Come on now, Reptoman . . . are you SURRREEEEE animals don't have souls or spirits?? Chapter and verse please??? (just teasing!)

It is clear to me that there are heavenly animals in scripture per revelations and the old testement, my comments were pointed at the differentiation of man from animals with respect to evolutionary teaching and thought. If animals have souls there would be a lot of scripture and a lot of the salvation messages that would need to be changed.......Since this is not the forum for this discussion feel free to e-mail me, you can get my address off the Phrynmosma.com site..........
cheers......
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Phrynosoma.com

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signature file edited. [phw 11/14/04]

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!? You forgot me already???? It's me. . . Laurie!! I had the two most adorable lizards on the planet from my neighbors who didn't want to take care of them anymore?? R-e-m-e-m-b-e-r!!!????!!!

Anyway . . . I know this isn't the forum for it . . .but just food for thought. MY hypothesis is . . . maybe the animals didn't sin so the need for the salvation message doesn't apply to them? Pretty interesting, isn't it?? COULD BE!!!

The burden of proof is on you, the scriptures are clear, and which chapter and verse? Cheers!
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Phrynosoma.com

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signature file edited. [phw 11/14/04]

proof?? Ummmmmmm . . . . I said "hypothesis". But an Interesting one!!! Animals don't sin.

It is generally safe to mix callow workers or pupae. This method is called boosting and generally works fairly well.

I have used a few methods before:

* simply submerge a small plastic bowl/cup. After, stomping next to the ant pile they will fall in. Taking just a few minutes to obtain several hundered.

* you can throw a piece of baloney on the pile.

* I have also extracted a 2'x 2'hole of dirt in an active ant pile and found that most of the time i'll catch the queen.

Also i wanted to say i've never experienced any problem when mixing same species ant from one ant pile to anther.