Uncle Milton Illuminated Ant Farm Gel Colony - Manual (Page 2)

1451-0250-0812-V01
KEEP THESE INSTRUCTIONS FOR FUTURE REFERENCE — DO NOT DISCARD
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UNCLE MILTON INDUSTRIES, INC.
P.O. Box 6281
THOUSAND OAKS, CA 91359 USA
©2012 UMI. All rights reserved. ® and TM
designate trademarks of Uncle Milton
Industries, Inc.
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MADE IN CHINA
2. Remove the habitat lid, carefully open the plastic tube of ants and gently
shake or tap it to allow the live ants to fall in. Try not to let any dead ants fall
in. BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO TOUCH THE ANTS! Replace the lid tightly.
3. The ants may seem inactive for the first few hours. That is because they are
not yet used to their new home. Put the habitat in a dark, quiet place
overnight to let the ants become accustomed. In a few days you should
begin see some tunnels. Widen the starter holes a bit if you do not see any
tunnels after a week. On average, your ants will live one to six months.
Restocking Your Light-up Gel Colony
If you want to put new ants in your Light-Up Gel Colony, be sure to remove
as many of the original occupants as possible. Also remove as much litter as
you can. There is no need to add new gel. The new ants will explore existing
tunnels and build new ones. Please visit www.unclemilton.com (click on
“Buy Creatures”) for information on ordering ants and supplies.
Don’t Start a War!
Don’t ever mix your ants or you will start a war. While ants in a colony are
very cooperative with each other, they will fight with ants from another
colony. The ants we send you will all be from the same colony, so they will
all get along. If you gather your own ants, be sure they all come from the
same place or they will fight. When you find a big group of ants all living
and working together, they are most likely from the same colony.
Don’t Bake Your Ants!
When the sun shines directly on your ant habitat it becomes like an oven,
and your ants could perish from the heat. Keep the habitat away from any
window where the sun shines directly on it. Don’t freeze your ants either, by
leaving the habitat outside in cold weather. Ants don’t like extremes in
temperature. A room temperature between 68˚ to 72˚F (20˚ to 22˚C) is ideal.
Ants Are Tidy
Ants are very clean creatures. You will see them grooming themselves and
each other. They use stiff hairs on their forelegs like brushes to clean their
antennae, heads and other parts of their bodies. While cleaning themselves
and each other, they leave a scent that identifies members of the same
colony. Ants can tell the difference between a nestmate and an unwelcome
visitor by their scent. Ants do not allow litter to pile up inside their nest. All
the waste from the colony is gathered up regularly and hauled away by
nest-keeping ants to a dump site.
Ants Are Industrious
Each ant in a colony has its own special job, and every job is important.
Deep below the surface of a natural nest, nurse ants take care of the queen,
eggs and larvae, nest-builders dig tunnels and chambers, and nest-keepers
keep the nest clean. On the surface, guard ants patrol for predators and
foragers look for food.
In some species, the younger ants work underground and the older ones
work on the surface. In other species, different sized ants do different jobs:
smaller ants work inside the nest, caring for the queen, eggs and larvae,
middle-sized ants do nest-building and most of the foraging for food, and
the largest ants are guards protecting the colony from predators and
invading ants.
If extra workers are needed for a really big job, ants might switch from one
task to another. For instance, if foragers find a good food source, some of
the builders underground will stop digging and come up to help. If there is
a particularly difficult underground tunneling project to complete, some
of the outside foragers will come down to assist.
Ants Are Strong and Fast
Ants are incredibly strong for their size. An ant is able to pick up objects up
to fifty times its own weight and carry it in its mandibles for long distances.
That would be like an average-sized human carrying a five-ton boulder
across the neighborhood by his teeth! For extra-heavy loads, ants work in
teams. Ants are also very speedy creatures. If you could run as fast as an
ant can for its size, you would be able to sprint twice as fast as the world’s
fastest human!
Ants Are Good for the Environment
Ants perform many important functions in the world’s ecosystems. They
are exceptional earth movers. Ants enrich, irrigate and aerate soil more
than any other animal in the world, including earthworms. Ants are major
recyclers of organic waste. Also, ants are a major food source for many
animals like birds, reptiles and amphibians.
Amazing Ant Facts
Ants have been around since dinosaurs lived!
There are currently about 12,000 known species of ants!
There may be 10,000 more species yet to be discovered!
There could be as many as ten million billion ants in the world right at this
moment!
There are more than one and a half million ants to every human on Earth!
Ants account for 10 percent of the weight of all the land-dwelling animals
combined!
Ants can be found on every continent... except Antarctica!
Ants use their antennae to touch, taste and smell!
Ants have a better sense of smell than dogs!
Ants have two stomachs!
The trap-jaw ant has the fastest jaw in the west (as well as anywhere else)!
A natural harvester ant nest can contain tens of thousands of members, and
other kinds can contain half a million!
A harvesters' ant nest can be fifteen feet deep!
Harvesters have only one queen to a colony; others can have more than one!
In Japan, a super-colony of 45,000 interconnected nests of red wood ants
has a million queens and hundreds of millions of workers, and it takes up an
entire square mile!
Some queens can live forty years or more!
An ant is able to lift loads of up to fifty times its own weight!
An ant typically carries objects that equal its own weight or less!
The smallest ant in the world is the tropical Carebara ant, which is about
3/100 of an inch (.75mm) long!
The largest ant in the world is the African driver ant, which is about one and
a half inches (38mm) long!
BATTERY SAFETY INFORMATION
• Non-rechargeable batteries are not to be recharged.
• Rechargeable batteries are to be removed from the toy before being
charged.
• Rechargeable batteries are only to be charged under adult supervision.
• Different types of batteries or new and used batteries are not to be
mixed.
• Batteries are to be inserted with the correct polarity.
• Exhausted batteries are to be removed from the toy.
• The supply terminals are not to be short-circuited.
• Do not mix old and new batteries.
• Do not mix alkaline, standard (carbon-zinc) or rechargeable
(nickel-cadmium) batteries.
• Do not dispose of batteries in fire. Battery may explode or leak.