Product Description

The Antworks Habitat and the Antworks Illuminator are all in one box. It includes a removable LED Illuminator with power adaptor, nutrient gel, magnifying glass, extreme zoom lens, ant catching/tunnel starting tool, and instruction booklet with interesting facts about ants. The ants not included, order form enclosed on back page of booklet. Item dimensions: 6.5 x 6 x 1.25 .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #608 in Toys & Games
• Brand: Fascinations
• Model: ANTW2
• Released on: 2009-01-01
• Dimensions: 6.50" h x 1.25" w x 6.00" l, 2.30 pounds

Features

• Antworks is great for science fairs, biology studies, or kids that want an easy to care for pet
• Follow Ants as they live, work and tunnel in the nutritius, blue translucent, illuminated gel
• Watch the ants create complex 3-D tunnels before your eyes. The perfect indoor pet that requires no food, water or maintenance
• Perfect as or desk accent light or fascinating night light with its soft blue glow
• Provides children with a chance to observe ants close up over several weeks

From the Manufacturer
AntWorks is a fantastic ant farm, based upon a 2003 NASA Space Shuttle experiment to study animal life in space and test how ants successfully tunnel in microgravity. Children and adults both enjoy watching these little creatures tunnel around in the nutrient-enriched, blue translucent gel. The bottom lighting provides excellent viewing. Best of all, the ants require no food or water, because it's all in the gel. An LED base illuminates the terrarium, so it looks awesome in the dark.

Customer Reviews

Great conversation piece for the office
My son gave me this ant farm for Christmas this year. I ordered the ants the next day and then started waiting. The unused ant farm sat in my office and my coworkers all wanted to know what it was. Their first comment was "it didn't come with the ants?" The answer is "of course not, they would be dead by the time someone bought it." You have to order your ants and it can take a long time for them to come in, especially in the winter.

It took several weeks for the ants to arrive. They come in a small brown pouch containing one vial of ants and are delivered via the post office. I carefully read the instructions as the ants had large mandibles and didn't look too happy about being in such a small space. Into the refrigerator they went for just a few minutes and they I easily popped them into the habitat. It's been almost two months now and they have created a lot of tunnels and most are still alive. The gel in which they live is also their food. This is a nice feature since I don't like lifting the lid any more than I have to. These little guys want out.

In case you are wondering, you DO NOT get a queen so the ants will live their life expectancy and then die. You don't get baby ants without a queen.

The kit comes with instructions for collecting ants yourself, but I live in Texas where the only ants are fire ants. The instruction book tells you to NOT collect fire ants, nor army ants. The book that comes with the habitat has some basic ant info and was a fun read. If you are going to give this as a gift to a child, order the ants in advance because it could take a month to 6 weeks for your ants to arrive.

Helpful Tips!!!
The Antworks antfarm is by far the best antfarm available. Forget about buying an antfarm with dirt or sand. With Antworks you can see right through the gel for optimal observation. Here are some helpful tips to make your ant watching experience the best possible!
Order your ants from Life Studies as suggested in other posts. However, go to http://www.infowest.com/life/ants.htm and order them online. I ordered them online and received them in 6 days! If you use the form that comes with Antworks, it will take longer, and there is nothing worse than staring at your Antworks with no ants!
The directions tell you to poke 4 holes in the gel with the included stick. Poke the holes in the gel next to the glass. This will assure that the ants will stay next to the glass when tunneling. With the tunnels next to the glass, you can see much better detail!
The directions tell you to open the top for a few seconds each week to allow new Oxygen inside. BE CAREFULL - the ants will swarm to the opening, so do it when no ants are near the top.
The ants are huge!! THEY WILL BITE!! Once you get your vile of ants, make sure they are on the bottom of the vile. Open the Antworks, open the vile, and tap them hard to drop them inside. If one falls outside of the Antworks, dont try to pick it up. It is probably best to just squash it!
Sit back and watch you ants build their world!

Lots of fun for all ages!
We bought this for our ant-obsessed son, and the whole family and all visitors have loved watching the ants work.

A couple of notes:

The life-span of the ants is about 3 months -- it's been exactly 3 months and we have about 4 living ants left.

The ants bite - at a science store where we bought the habitat, they had one on display. The cashier was trying to show me how you would clean out any dead ants, and when he lifted the lid, the ants swarmed out and a few bit him. I taped the lid shut to deter any kids from trying to open it.

If you refrigerate the habitat for 15 minutes, that will make the ants sluggish, and you can clean out any dead ants or excess gel that the ants bring to the surface. However, set a timer! Once I left the poor ants in the refrigerator for 2 hours and when I retrieved them they were all huddled at the bottom of the habitat. Fortunately, they all survived (although perhaps you should take the 3 month life-span with a grain of salt, given the extreme conditions they faced early in their habitat life).

Due to health and mortality concerns, my son would not allow me to put a drop of nail polish on the back of one ant so that we could name him and chart his/her progress. I think that would have made the habitat even more interesting, to be able to track one specific ant.

Also, the clerk at the science store said the gel is reusable, that is, when the old ants all die, I can add more ants. That would also be interesting - would they close off the old tunnels and build new ones? Would they use the ones that exist? Too bad I've misplaced the order form...

All in all, a very worthwhile $20.