Real Pacific Flying Squid (Todarodes pacificus)  specimen encased in clear lucite material. Safe, authentic and completely unbreakable product put real Squid right at your fingertips!

Anyone can safely explore the Squid from every angle.

It is clear enough for microscope observation.

Length of the squid is 6.5 cm(2.6 inch).

Size of the lucite block is 7.3x4.0x2.0 cm(2.9x1.6x0.8 inch).

Each one comes with a cardboard box for easy storage.

Weight of the block is 100 g and 125 g with packing box.

It is an ideal learning aid for students and kids and also a very good collectible item for every body.

This is a handmade real animal specimen craft. Each one will be a bit different (specimen size, color and posture) even in the same production batch.
The pictures in the listing are just for reference as we are selling multiple pieces with same pictures.

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Pacific Flying Squid –Todarodes pacificus

The Pacific flying squid Todarodes pacificus, is a squid of the family Ommastrephidae. This animal lives in the northern Pacific Ocean, in the area surrounding Japan, along the entire coast of China up to Russia, then spreading across the Bering Straight over towards the lower coast of Alaska and the coast of Canada. They tend to cluster around the central region of Vietnam.

Adult squid have several distinguishing features. The mantle encloses the visceral mass of the squid, and has two fins, which are not the primary method of propulsion. Instead, the squid has a siphon: a muscle which takes in water from one side, and pushes it out the other side: jet propulsion. The squid has eight arms and two tentacles with suction cups along the backs. In between the arms sits the mouth, or beak. Inside the mouth is a tooth-tongue-like appendage called the radula. Squid have ink sacs, which they use as a defense mechanism against possible predators. Squid also have three hearts.

The age of a squid can be determined on the basis of its growth rings, or statoliths, when additions are appended daily to the balance organs in the back of the squid’s head. This species of squid can weigh up to 0.5 kg. Mantle length in females can go up to 50 cm; males are smaller.

It can live anywhere from 5° to 27°C, and tend to inhabit the upper layers of the ocean. They are short lived, only surviving about a year.

Within this year of life, the squid mature from larvae form, feed and grow, migrate, and at the end of their lives, congregate at the mating grounds, where they reproduce. Three subpopulations have been identified in Japanese waters. “The main group spawns in winter in the East China Sea, the second in autumn, west of Kyushu, and the third, minor group in spring/summer in the Sea of Japan as well as off northeastern Japan.”[4]

"Their migration moves North then South, tending to follow the surface currents.[5] The squid tend to travel in large schools of more or less uniform size [meaning] that it is often possible to follow the growth of cohorts from recruitment to spawning, although the earliest part of the life history is generally more difficult to study because the larvae are always pelagic and some are rarely caught".[6]

Squid generally only live one year because as soon as they reproduce, they die. Males mature first, and “transfer their spermatophores on the still immature females.” Then, on the continuing journey south, the females “mature and spawn 300 to 4,000 small, elliptical or semi-spherical eggs.” The squid migrate together, and lay all their eggs in the same area where they were born. The eggs hatch into larvae after only 102–113 hours (somewhere around five days), depending on the water temperature.

It is believed that the planktonic larvae feed on phytoplankton and zooplankton until they grow large enough to begin feeding on fish. When the squid matures more, it will eat mainly fish and crustaceans, however, it will also resort to cannibalism, especially when trapped in nets together.