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AS-05 EPIBENTHIC DREDGE ASSORTMENT

This assortment serves two purposes. It demonstrates the tremendous diversity of conspicuous marine invertebrates and slow moving bottom fish found in sea grass beds, mud flats, rock bottoms, and sand flats. It also provides a variety of hardy, long-lived organisms for the aquarium. The dredge brings up sea urchins, whelks, conchs, starfish, red footed sea cucumbers, crabs, and sea anemones. Often there are magnificently colored sponges, along with several species of grass shrimp, crabs, tunicates, and orange bryozoans. Two 20-gallon aquariums should be used to separate the predators from the prey.

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AS-06 ROCK BORER’S ASSORTMENT

Three to five pieces of subtidal “living” limestone rock are gathered by SCUBA diving to demonstrate the complex ecosystem of rock dwelling organisms. These rocks are guaranteed to be riddled with a variety of boring, attached, and encrusted organisms. To study the boring forms, the rocks should be broken apart with a hammer, exposing the feather duster worms, and a wide variety of other polychaetes, boring clams, sipunculids, and occasionally, echiuroids. The rocks themselves are frequently encrusted with coral, bryozoans, barnacles, tunicates, and sponges. Some may bear turkey-wing clams and gorgonians; others have rich growth of algae.

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AS-07 FOULING ASSEMBLAGE

To demonstrate a favorable man made environmental impact. A fine selection of fouling organisms are collected from wharf pilings and floating docks within hours of shipment. Using the famed Japanese oyster strings of the mariculture business we have been able to culture a wide variety of hydroids, sponges, sea grapes and other tunicates, bryozoans as well as large barnacles, small mussels, and oysters. The fouling growths are loaded with skeleton shrimp, amphipods, porcelain crabs, zebra shrimp, nudibranchs, polychaetes, tiny flatworms, and sometimes jellyfish larvae. The sponges are frequently riddled with small pink sea anemones and scyllid worms. Sometimes blennies are provided. Life on the wharf pilings constantly changes with the seasons. The abundant crustaceans serve as an excellent live food for other organisms as witnessed by the hordes of fish that remain around wharves. While some sensitive filter feeders of the fouling community may be short-lived in the aquarium, others may survive for months and even years.

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AS-08 SHRIMP TRAWL ASSORTMENT

Shrimp boats bring up a huge assortment of benthic invertebrates and bottom-feeding fish. One might find cowfish, spiny boxfish, ling, batfish, and sand eels, along with pigfish, grunts, and flounder. Sea pansies flash with bio-luminescence, and mantis shrimps with high stalked green eyes flex and strike with their spiny tails. Pink shrimp, with glowing red eyes, red and white calico crabs, orange starfish, and writhing brittlestars add color and excitement to the catch. You never know what the net will bring up next. Specimens are held in our closed system tanks and acclimated before shipping.

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AS-13 SALT MARSH LIFE ASSORTMENT

This assortment demonstrates how utterly fantastic and productive a marsh is. The assortment may include grass shrimp, killifish, fiddler crabs, black mud crabs, periwinkle snails, and oyster burs. It also includes plants such as Spartina alterniflora ad salt wort, Batis and Salicornia. Mud, roots, and plants are packed in the box, ready to replant in your aquarium! Anything you might find in tidal creeks, marsh inlets, or cord grass habitats could be found in this assortment!

Small Assortment $135.00

Medium Assortment $191.00

Large Assortment $270.00

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AS-15 GENERAL BIOLOGY CLASS ASSORTMENT

With emphasis on invertebrate form and color, this creative assortment is an excellent teaching aid in a survey course in zoology or general biology. Transversing all the major phyla, it provides many eye catching examples of sponges, coelenterates, annelids, mollusks, arthropods, echinoderms, and chordates. The deluxe units feature a number of minor phyla such as Ctenophora, Brachiopoda, Sipunculoidea, Phoronida, and Ectoprocta. Ending with a wriggling pink amphioxus, routine biology labs can be turned into exciting and interesting classroom experiences.

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AS-16 LIVING SHELL COMMUNITY

Dead oyster and clam shells are of great ecological significance on sandy bottoms where they provide a substrate for an entire community of sessile animals and plants, which either encrust or bore directly into the dead shells. By distributing one or more shells to each student, observations can be made concerning the various adaptations common to this specialized lifestyle. Some shells are covered with barnacles, others have pink and red Astrangia coral or orange bryozoans; and still others support tunicates. Sabellarid and serpulid polychaetes encrust the surface with their limestone or sandy tubes. Feather duster worms expand their crowns from within the shell. Limpets and chitons move about on the surface grazing on algae, and some shells have orange dorid nudibranchs, Doriopsilla pharpa. The juvenile stages of the boring sponge, Cliona celata, riddle the shells, dissolving away the limestone substrate. These are not just specimens; they are entire living mini-habitats.

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AS-1015 TURKEY WING CLAM COMMUNITY, Arca zebra

This species helps to provide structure for commensal organisms and thus create habitat for other species. An order consists of 4 or 5 live turkey wing clams with associated commensals attached. Attached organisms may include various species of sponge, hard coral species, macro algaes, and many more. Customers cannot request specific species included in commensal organisms. If you desire a specific commensal species please place an order for that species.