Talk:Formicarium

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Merge

Should the article Ant Farm be merged with this article, or made to be pop tart . -Cdelosr1 22:14, 20 August 2006‎ (UTC)

Done. Peter O. (Talk) 14:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gel / agar

Anyone know what gel is used in this farm? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.153.70.160 (talk • contribs)

Although I myself am not sure, Wikipedia's reference desk may be able to be of assistance. +A.0u 04:25, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agar but there are a bajillion types of agar. I'm looking for the recipe as well. I need a lot of it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.48.146 (talk • contribs) 05:18, 30 August 2007‎ (UTC)[reply]

Do the ants become lazy, living in their own food like that? They don't have to hunt to find food, they just.. eat whatever's around?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk • contribs) 04:35, 5 July 2007‎ (UTC)[reply]

Article states its a harder medium for them to dig in. I'm watching a ant farm right now and they like to dig just the same, gotta build a fortress, cemetary, lots of cavities, I've talked to one company and they won't tell me the ingredients, say its a trade secret, although more than one company makes the agar type ant farms. Also, it's said that NASA did the first agar ant farm in space tests. I imagine those documents are around some where? I need a lot too, this company sells just the Agar, but I'd love to just make it myself. I think they said it was made from Algae?
http://www.lanbogroup.com/cgi-bin/ccp/cp-app.cgi?usr=51J3111058&rnd=5929237&rrc=N&affl=&cip=67.164.65.21&act=&aff=&pg=prod&ref=lanbo104&cat=antbase&catstr=HOME:antbas
Here is the original experiment
http://www.starsacademy.com/sts107/experiments/ants_top.htm
http://www.starsacademy.com/sts107/experiments/ants/ants_images/habitat.htm and a pdf with more info http://www.starsacademy.com/sts107/experiments/ants/ants_images/01ICES-252.pdf
The original supplier of the algae agar for the experiment was "Plant Technologies Inc.", New Jersey— Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.164.65.21 (talk • contribs) 07:20, 5 March 2008‎ (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization of "Ant Farm"

If the expression "Ant Farm" is being used generically, instead of being used in reference to a particular branded product, would it not be correct to spell it as "ant farm" without capitalization? -- Wavelength (talk) 16:52, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most online sources don't capitalize it and I can't find any reliable sources that do. An ant farm is simply a farm of ants anyway, so I'm pretty sure those are common nouns. I'll just be bold and pull the trigger now. —LOL ^T/_C 07:33, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Ant Farm" is a registered trademark of Uncle Milton, Inc. They capitalize it. Is that reliable enough for you? — Quicksilver^{T @} 14:19, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Propagation

"This type of formicarium is for observing worker ants and its effectiveness in serious ant propagation is limited."

What is "ant propagation" supposed to mean here? Actually spreading ants across the world? Surely the effectiveness is limited there, given that you don't normally have a queen, and don't normally provide enough protein anyway. On the other hand, it is helping propagate those particular worker ants... Maybe somebody's just trying to say that this type of formicarium is of limited effectiveness for sustaining an ant colony in the long term. Please clarify. —WorldAsWill (talk) 05:39, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ant Farm® inventor

The article claims that commercial formicarium was patented in 1931 by Frank Austin, but the Uncle Milton site claims it was invented by its now-deceased founder, Milton Levine. If the 1931 Austin patent can't be documented, the statement should be removed. — Quicksilver^{T @} 14:49, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Austin's Patent

In case, anybody reads this :-), I added some stuff under "History" especially the link to Austin's Patent from 1931. Poepkop (talk) 18:09, 15 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Later added 2 more patents from him relating to minor variations in the build up of his ant palaces. Also added a link for the registered name of Ant Farm. UMI has multiple active registered names for their ant observing devices but I figure one will do. Poepkop (talk) 22:26, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unclear incomplete sentence fragment in "Laws on keeping ants" section

Would someone please identify what this - ". rules for owning, keeping, buying or selling non-protected species." - is supposed to mean, and then fix it?