Milton Levine, Inventor Of The Ant Farm, Dead At Age 97

by LiamK

Milton Levine, founder of the science toy company Uncle Milton and inventor of the iconic ant farm habitat, died on January 16, Gifts and Decorative Accessories reports.  He was 97.

Levine was married for 65 years to wife Mauricette, and is survived by children Steve, Ellen and Harriet Levine. Steve and Ellen have been involved in running the company since Milton's retirement in the 1980s. The company was sold to a private equity company in 2010.

 According to the Wall Street Journal, Levine's first encounters with ants were when he made mini-terrariums of them in Mason jars on his uncle's farm. The company, however, is not named for that uncle -- rather, Levine named it that because people often asked him if he was in the ant business, where was the uncle? He wrote a book called Ant Facts and Fantasies in 1970.

NY Daily News reports:

Levine was watching ants during a Fourth of July picnic in Studio City in 1956 when he was reminded of collecting ants in jars as a child, Levine told the Times in 2002.

He recalled announcing: "We should make an antarium."

Levine and his brother-in-law, E. J. Cossman, came up with a transparent habitat – a green plastic frame with a whimsical farm scene – that allowed people to watch ants dig tunnels in sand between two plastic panes.

The ants were sent by mail. Collectors got a penny apiece to grab red harvester ants from the Mojave Desert.

"Ants work day and night, they look out for the common good and never procrastinate," Levine told the Times. "Humanity can learn a lot from the ant."

The toy was an instant hit. The product has remained essentially the same over the decades, although some small changes were made. The original glue was toxic to some ants, so it was replaced. The sand was switched to whitish volcanic ash in order to make the ants more visible.

Levine sometimes joked that the ants' most amazing feat was putting his three children through college.

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