Take it from me. I'm from Texas, and I kept a THL without ants for about 2-2 1/2 years. Now I now longer support that diet. It is too dangerous for them, and I think it reduces metabolism and holds up growth. They can survive on fewer harvester ants than most Horned Lizard species, but they are still specialized harvester ant eaters, and as such, commonly require 60% or better of their diet to be harvester ants. Crickets, mealworms, and other common insect feeders, are far too high in fat and chitin...and far too lopsided in calcium/phosphorus ratio to be healthy. These insects given in excess as a primary meal are not healthy for the lizard. It may also set up fatal conditions. If not from the added stress of the organs handling excessive fat, then from a digestive blockage.

It is also common that pet store people don't know a rip about what they sell, and that with Horned Lizards they like to muddy the waters on just what it is they need to eat. That's because harvester ants aren't as easy to buy everywhere and they cost more than crickets....so if they can get you to think they can live on something else, then they make money selling the lizard. The lowly employee may not be conspiring in this manner, but somewhere along the chain they have been lied to by the person wanting to make the buck, or took the word of the nitwit that caught them in the first place who doesn't know jack.
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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

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