RK, thank you for your more thought critical and professional reply.
I am open to your debate about "adapted", but I don't want to play symantics if you have a better word in mind...however you have made many very fast and loose unsupported assumptions in other matters. For example your "fair assumption" in point #2. I understand a hypothesis has to start somewhere...but there are some that are more assured than others. I think my "adapted" statment stands on firm scientific ground. As a scientist, you do buy into Darwinism, do you not? Creationism could also be argued...but that's all moot anyway. The best proof that they are adapted is the plain multidudes of years of previous scientific and casual study of the creatures. Is it just coincidence that HL's are so conveniently suited in many ways to eat ants, and that they do in numbers in the wild? Does your hypothesis allow that nature or HL's are making a mistake...or do you refute that this knowledge is accurate or complete? I agree to take further debate on that point at a later date in another thread.
As to point 1 of you arguement:
I agree. I make no assumptions that it is "required". I.e. the animal will die without their chemical composition. I have already verified that myself over the years, though I maintain there are many reasons alternative diets can be dangerous...and can cause or contribute to death in many ways.
I applaud your scientific approach and critical thought skills. However, do not make more out of your degree than is necessary. Credentials many times are over-rated and merely come by way of someone else's previous opinons being taught in a classroom. The same dangers of assumption are present rummaging around in the refuse piles of many a scientific journal or university classrooms, and are perpetuated as "law" or informed opinion through years of academic rubber stamping.
A scientist is someone who observes and can make thought critical analyses in a methodical and logical way to answer a question. That's all. One does not require a degree to have that ability.
Point 2:
I agree to a degree...that all depends on the conditions CB feeders are being kept in. Ants could be kept in CB environment as well and reduce these risks. So why is that not within your approach or concern?
Point 3:
I think this further establishes my point that there is a financial market concern in these dietary debates. "Easy and continuous access" to harvester ants can be debated as very subjective based on a persons means. Ants can be ordered easily enough, and even propagated with a little more effort than is required for other feeders.
I guarantee whatever you have paid in the last two years in the way of crickets, it would have been more with ants if you had to purchase them...and there are many more people selling crickets that offer better deals than what you have paid for 1000. The cost benefit is there even if you don't yet realize it.
Point 4:
Harvester ants have a very varied diet that is easily met by using common garden items or items available in your fridge...as well as insects. In this manner their "gut loading" can be controlled also if need be. I maintain "gut loading benefits" are really only an issue if you aren't using harvester ants. No I don't have data on that...but it's moot anyway if I can illustrate that gut loading control is just as easy with ants. And why wouldn't it be?
Point 5:
That's a real leap my degreed friend! HL's may be long gone well before the ants. I don't think there's a danger of Pogo's going extinct anytime soon. They move around and adapt pretty well, as I've seen them in downtown metro areas here at traffic intersections. They also propagate much better than HL's do and bounce back from such things in different spots. The colonies can sustain workers being stepped on or run over by cars...the HL cannot survive such things.
Your point here seems to call alarm to the fact that the ants are in danger...therefore we must work to find a lifeboat for the lizards which is another food source. I don't think this is grounded in science or casual observation.
If I were to entertain your question of the possibilty, then I would say you have the wrong question in mind. The question then becomes "how do you mitigate the reduction of the Pogo populations." It's folly to suggest that we just jump right to how to find another diet for the lizards at this point.
Your point also is an admission that other food sources are merely secondary preference out of necessity due to a panicked assumption about of extinction of ants.
I think your point 5 is the least grounded in scientific merit.
I won't make a blatant accusation about your motives and true intent about saving HL's and being concerned for the genus. I don't know that you don't care. But I think I have a valid point to question your scientific house being in order if that is your real concern. You're focus is way way off if that is the concern. There are many many many more things that a "real scientist" could do in that respect which would be much more beneficial to saving Horned Lizards...than trying to figure out a more convenient and readily available captive food source.
What of the wild populations? Where does your concern for their continued existence fit into your approach? Your focus seems to be only for how to keep them in captivity. Does your concern or scientific approach involve prevention of the vase from being shattered in the first place? Or do you really think the best way to save the vase at this point is to prepare to glue the pieces back together after it shatters!? Seems most unscientific to me.
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"A man that should call everything by it's right name, would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy." The Complete Works of George Savile, First Marquess of Halifax 1912,246
