Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as formicary.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A vivarium used for the study of ants and ant colonies.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin formica (ant) + -arium.

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Examples

  • Mr. Levine made no claims to have invented the formicarium, as homes for ants are formally called.

    He Hit Pay Dirt Popularizing the Toy Ant Farm Stephen Miller 2011

  • But Mr. Levine, who knew a lot about ants despite lacking formal training, insisted the formicarium was older still.

    He Hit Pay Dirt Popularizing the Toy Ant Farm Stephen Miller 2011

  • The history of a _formicarium_, or ant's nest, is as follows: The workers, only, hibernate, and are found early in the spring, taking care of the eggs and larvæ produced by the autumnal brood of females.

    Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses 1872

  • We had a quantity of common brown carbolic acid, about a pint of which I mixed with four buckets of water, and, after stirring it well about, poured it down the burrows; I could hear it rumbling down to the lowest depths of the formicarium four or five feet from the surface.

    The Naturalist in Nicaragua Thomas Belt 1855

  • After travelling for some hundreds of yards, often for more than half a mile, the formicarium is reached.

    The Naturalist in Nicaragua Thomas Belt 1855

  • It was a wholesale and entire migration; and the next day the formicarium down which I had last poured the carbolic acid was entirely deserted.

    The Naturalist in Nicaragua Thomas Belt 1855

  • I do not doubt that some of the leading minds in this formicarium recollected the nest of the year before, and directed the migration to it.

    The Naturalist in Nicaragua Thomas Belt 1855

  • News of the commotion is carried to the formicarium, and huge fellows, measuring three-quarters of an inch in length, that only come out of the nest during a migration or an attack on the nest or one of the working columns, are seen stalking down with a determined air, as if they would soon right matters.

    The Naturalist in Nicaragua Thomas Belt 1855

  • In every formicarium or ant colony there are three sets of individuals -- males, females, and workers; but the saübas have the singularity of possessing three classes of workers.

    The Andes and the Amazon Across the Continent of South America James Orton 1853

  • CLICK HERE for the rest of the post and more bklyn designs after the jump! hugh hayden and katie vitale joined forces a this year's bklyn designs to launch a project called "FRAMEicarium" - a play on the idea of ant farms (formicarium) and antique frames. the frames have sand in them where ants can tunnel and create patterns against colored plexi or an actual painting. my initial thought was "WOAH.

    Design*Sponge 2010

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