Moloch horridus

[grahamh]

The best name....

I was talking to a geezer today about Thorny Devils (Not Horny Devils Africa) and I said how much I liked them but thought they'd be difficult to keep because they only eat ants. He told me of a friend who has one and that it eats crickets quite happily.

Q1. Anyone got one or know if this is true (the crickets - not whether his mate has one).

Q2. Can you keep them on a class 1 licence.

and lastly any herp that can do the following gets my vote:

Thorny devils posses a curious knob-like spiny appendage on the backs of their necks, which has sometimes been likened to a false head. When threatened, the lizards tuck their real heads down between their forelegs leaving this false head in the position of their real head.

Thorny devils arn't listed in the new species list at all.
(not sure if it was a typo mistake or if they are now not allowed to be kept)

[Nicole]

They are one lizard that realy does fascinate me.
Apparently they are rare as in captivity, and def. not on a class one license in NSW.

[africancichlidau]

Anything that can tuck its head down between its legs just has to be worth keeping

[jmbrimer]

Mollochs are prohibited in all states as a protected species - some people are allowed to keep them under special circumstances. Basically they're hard to keep, because not only do they only eat ant's in the wild, but they only eat two (maybe three) species of ant. The method of feeding they employ is to stand next to a line of ant's in a colony and suck'em up as they wander past making it doubly hard to feed them too. There have been success stories tho - a couple of people in S.A have converted then to crickets (the eating habit's, not the Molochs themselves), and someone in Sydney trained a colony of the ants to walk in from his backyard and straight into his Moloch enclosure. Those are the successes I know of, others may know more..

someone in Sydney trained a colony of the ants to walk in from his backyard and straight into his Moloch enclosure.

Kewl, im in the process of training worms to catch fish at the moment.So far I have a small colony of 2 males and 5 females that will just sit on the end of my hook and grab the suckers by there gill plates lol

[jmbrimer]

That would be extreemly useful! hehehe. apparently traing columns of ants where to walk is actually not all that hard - you put dollops of honey in a circuit from their nest, bit of trial and error and away they go!

Yea it is all trial and error. My worm training exercise is still in practise mode due to them only catching the ones that john west would reject hehe!

[roadkill5000]

Originally Posted by grahamh

Thorny devils posses a curious knob-like spiny appendage on the backs of their necks, which has sometimes been likened to a false head. When threatened, the lizards tuck their real heads down between their forelegs leaving this false head in the position of their real head.

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