The Antquarium
By Phillip Torrone 
posted Aug 23rd 2004 8:01AM
posted Aug 23rd 2004 8:01AM
Having a pet in a cramped Toyko apartment can be a serious pain in the ass, so desperate to have something apparently a fair number of Japanese are snapping up the Antquarium, which is basically an ant farm filled with a gel that's both food and tunneling material for the ants (which are not included). Says one happy Antquarium owner, "As I live on my own, I wanted to have pets that are easy to take care of," and that he, "wanted to feel close to nature." Only in Japan could a big glass box filled with blue gel be considered nature.
Ants just aren't cutting it with me.... where's the version with tiny robots?
Would be kinda cool on my desk though.
This has been in Brookstone stores for a while
http://www.brookstone.com/shop/product.asp?product_code=426288&search_type=search&search_words=ant
A classic case of Nature vs. Nurture.
I was given one of these in 1996. They're pretty neat, but the ants still all die after a couple of months.
do the japanese know that the definition of 'pet' is: something you can actually... you know, pet!
what kind of bond can one create with an ant?
where can u get enough ants to fill up that thing?
http://www.ihaveanidea.org/spots/entries/00000104.htm
A bit off topic, but very funny.
My ants are working hard, but I was so sad when I had to go to work and could not see them digging. So I set up a webcam to track the work they did while I was at work. http://www.corvinedesign.com/news.php the link to the Antquarium Webcam is on the right hand side. take a look. I love this thing.
My ants started digging galleries and did some crazy things (like going to a drive-in!). Here is the colony's blog :
http://fourmi-bleu.blogspot.com/