Milton Levine

Milton Levine, who died on January 16 aged 97, made a fortune from the "Uncle Milton Ant Farm", a sand-filled, clear plastic box through which budding myrmecologists could watch the insects tunnel, eat, and die. 

Levine with an Ant Farm Photo: AP

 

Levine got the idea for his ant farm at a Fourth of July picnic in Los Angeles in 1956 when he became fascinated by a colony of undertaker ants building towers, transporting crumbs and generally doing what ants do. Thinking that children would be fascinated by watching the ants, he developed a prototype "farm" using a clear plastic handkerchief box with a wooden base and filling it with sand. He then took some ants from a nearby field to populate his new world.

After placing an advert in a newspaper he found himself deluged with orders. Unable to meet demand, he eventually secured the services of a family of ant rustlers to collect red harvester ants in the Mojave Desert at one cent per ant. The breed was deemed best-suited for the ant farm because they are plentiful, are active in the daytime, are vegetarian, and do not thrive indoors if they escape.

Though the original sand was replaced with lighter volcanic gravel to make it easier to see the ants, the design of the farms remained largely unchanged until Levine's son took over the business in the 1990s, when the ants had their digs upgraded with new modules. These included such novelties as tiny bungee ropes and ant-sized skateboarding parks. Half a century after Milton Levine's Fourth of July picnic, more than 20 million ant farms had been sold.

All the same, some found the performance of the insects a mite disappointing. As federal law prohibits the shipment of the queen ants (which are necessary for a colony to survive), the colonies tended to be short-lived and, deprived of the pheromones that give the colony a purpose, sometimes seemed caught in an existential crisis. "After a while, they just start dying," observed one reviewer. "They always bury their dead, and it gets a little sadder every day watching them haul the latest deaths off to where the other little bodies are. Finally there's only one ant left, huddled up all by himself, with no one to bury him when he finally goes."

The son of Russian immigrants, Milton Martin Levine was born on November 3 1913 in Pittsburgh, where his father ran a chain of dry-cleaners. After leaving school he ran a furniture store.

During the Second World War, he was drafted into the US Army and saw service in Britain, France and Germany. After the war ended he read an article suggesting that there were fortunes to be made from hair pins and plastic toys – both in short supply.
Opting for the latter, Levine and his brother-in-law approached a Pennsylvania company that made novelties – soldiers, circus animals, cowboys and indians and the like – for popcorn and peanut boxes. The business did so well that after a few years Levine moved to Los Angeles where he diversified into toy trains, children's records, balloons, "spud guns" and rubber "shrunken heads" to hang on rear-view mirrors. Not all his ventures were a success. A hat that sprouted real grass did not sell, and a miniature sea horse corral had to be withdrawn when the animals failed to survive the journey through the US mail.
But it was the ant farm that secured the company's future: "I expected it to last two seasons like most toys do," said Levine in 2002. "But the ant farm today is as stable as the Barbie doll." When Uncle Milton Industries was sold last June to a private-equity firm, it was valued at between $30 and $40 million.
Levine is survived by his wife, Mauricette, by his son and by two daughters.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8309644/Milton-Levine.html