Animal Specimen Collection Set - Angel Fish, Clamworn & Newt

Real Angel Fish - Pterophyllum scalare, Clamworm (Slender Ragworm - Nereis pelagica), Oriental Fire Belly Newt - Cynops orientalis specimen encased in clear lucite material. The specimens are crystal clear, indestructible and transparent. Safe, authentic and completely unbreakable product put real specimens right at your fingertips!

Anyone can safely explore the specimens from every angle.
It is clear enough for microscope observation.

Length of the Fish from head to tail is 4.5 cm (1.8 inch). 

Length of the Worm is 19 cm(7.5 inch).

Length of the Newt from head to tail is 6.0 cm (2.4 inch). 

Size of each acrylic block is 7.5x7.5x1 cm (3.0x3.0x0.4 inch).

Each one comes with a cardboard box for easy storage.

Weight of each lucite block is 60 gram and 260 gram in total with packing box.

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.

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

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Angel Fish - Pterophyllum scalare

Family:   Cichlidae (Cichlids), subfamily: Cichlasomatinae
Order:   Perciformes  (perch-likes)  Class:   Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes)

FishBase name: Freshwater angelfish

Max. size:   7.5 cm

Environment:   benthopelagic; freshwater; pH range: 6.0 – 8.0; dH range: 5 - 13

Climate: tropical; 24 – 30°C; 6°N - 10°S, 78°W - 51°W

Importance:   fisheries: ; aquarium: highly commercial; price category: not marketed/unknown

Resilience:   High, minimum population doubling time less than 15 months(tm<1)

Vulnerability:  Low vulnerability (10.00).

Distribution:   South America: Amazon River basin, in Peru, Colombia, and Brazil, along the Ucayali, Solimões and Amazon rivers; rivers of Amapá (Brazil), Rio Oyapock in French Guiana; Essequibo River in Guyana. Morphology:   Body compressed and disc-shaped; dorsal and anal spiny rays increasing in length from anterior to posterior part of the fin; first branched rays also very long; body height at anal fin level 1.07 to 1.29 times; body color silvery with dark vertical bars (7 in juveniles, 4 in adults).

Biology:   Inhabit swamps or flooded grounds where the aquatic and riverine vegetation are dense and the water is either clear or silty. Its color is deeper in clear water. One of the most popular of all the tropical aquarium fish. Maximum length 15 cm. Aquarium keeping: in groups of 5 or more individuals; keep pairs in small tanks for breeding; minimum aquarium size 100 cm.

Dangerous:   harmless

Clamworm (Slender Ragworm - Nereis pelagica)

·  Phylum: Annelida

·  Class: Polychaeta

·  Subclass: Errantia

·  Order: Phyllodocida

·  Family: Nereididae

·  Scientific name: Nereis pelagica

Characteristics:

The slender ragworm Nereis pelagica is 6-21 cm long and has 30-100 segments with thin hairs (chaetae) on each segment. The legs, parapods, are positioned closer together than for instance the legs of Hediste diversicolor. A clearly visible blood vessel runs along the back. On the head there are two antennae, two large appendages or palps, and four pairs of tentacles. The most characteristic features are the two appendages or palps, on on each side of the head. These are very large and longer than the antennae. The color is usually golden or bronze, sometimes with a green tint.

Ragworms are predator worms with strong jaws; a large ragworm can produce quite a bite! They have lots of small legs, which explains why they are also called marine centipedes. They emerge out of the sea bottom to mate in the spring. Deep-sea fishermen like to use ragworms for bait because fish like to bite into them. However, these worms are more difficult to dig up out of the mudflats, making them more expensive than lugworms. That is why ragworms are cultivated. There are various kinds of ragworms. The king rag can grow as long as 40 centimeters. The estuary ragworm grows to 20 centimeters.

Habitat:

It lives in the tidal zone, or just below, under rocks or buried in sand or muddy substrate.

Distribution:

It is found in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, on both hemispheres. It is also registered in the Mediterranean.

Oriental Fire Belly Newt - Cynops orientalis

Class: Amphibia  Order: Caudata  Family: Salamandridae  Genus: Cynops

Species: C. orientalis

Description

The Chinese Fire-bellied Newt is the smallest species of the East Asian salamandrid genus Cynops. In its morphological features this species is distinctly different from other taxa in this genus. Head relatively large, a little longer than broad; snout rounded. Palatine teeth in two longitudinal series, commencing from front of choanae meeting anteriorly, gradually diverging posteriorly. Tongue small, practically free at the sides. Paratoids moderately developed, their posterior borders demarcating head from neck. Faint vertebral ridge. Tail rather short, approximately the length of the body. Margins of dorsal and ventral tail fins nearly parallel in breeding male, ending rather abruptly in a rounded, blunt tip. Skin rather smooth, especially in aquatic individuals. Lateral line organs clearly discernible in water.

Male smaller than female, especially the tail is shorter in the male than in the female. In the reproductive season, males have well developed dorsal and ventral tail fins, and a swollen cloaca.

Colour is dark-brown to black above, occasionally greyish. Colour of belly and throat lively red or orange with many rounded black spots. The base of each limb, anterior part of the cloaca and ventral tail fin are orange, posterior part of cloaca is black.

Total maximum length 7 to 9 cm.

Eggs and larvae
Eggs are laid individually, under and between leaves, folded in a leaf, in floating roots and grasses. Size of oval-shaped jelly mass 4 to 2.5 mm, egg rounded, 2 mm in diameter. A female can lay a little over 100 eggs per season on average, from March to mid-June. Optimal water temperature for egg deposition is 15 to 23° C. Eggs laid in water of 18-25° hatch in 11 to 17 days, at lower temperatures hatching takes considerably longer.

One insemination is sufficient for a female to lay fertilized eggs during two months; in this and other features of oviposition and early development there are differences between C. orientalis and C. cyanurus.

Hatching larvae are 10-12 mm. Larvae are uniformly dark-brown to black, a little lighter on the ventral side, and take approximately 50 to 80 days to metamorphose. After metamorphosis at a length of 30-35 mm, juveniles live on land.

Distribution

C. orientalis is widely distributed at the lower reach of the Yangtze River and adjacent areas, in the hilly plains of central and southeastern China at 30 to 1,500 m altitude (the provinces of Henan, southern Hubei, southern Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangxi, Fujian, and Hunan).

Habitat

The habitat is described as consisting of all suitable water bodies at various altitudes, mountain ponds, seepages and paddy fields in hilly areas, small brooks, flooded fields in mountain valleys, in forests and degraded areas. Locally it may be very abundant. “Always the water is cold and quiet, in the shade of grass, with a mud bottom free from stones”. For egg deposition C. orientalis often chooses lentic water bodies such as ponds, wells and farmland ditches.

Behaviour

There are no studies in western languages on natural history and ecology of this species. Although the newts are often aquatic, they also live on land outside the breeding season. In Zhejiang where winters are mild, C. orientalis does not hibernate and can be found all year round. According to observations by Yang & Shen in Hunan (1993), males enter the breeding pond first in January and February, resulting in an initial sex-ratio eschewed towards males. Fei et al. (2006) refer to a peak in the breeding season from late April to mid May. Males and females leave the breeding water from July to September.

Reproduction and courtship behaviour is similar to that of other Cynops species, but shows temporal differences. The male identifies a female by sniffing her body. He positions himself in front of her, and rapidly vibrates the distal part of his tail, fanning towards her snout. If the female is responsive, she stays still or moves towards the male. The male then turns round, creeping ahead of the female. He deposits a spermatophore on the substrate and the female picks it up with her cloaca. The male’s tail-fanning courtship display and creep movements ahead of the female are of relatively short duration and one spermatophore is deposited a few seconds after the male starts to creep ahead of the female. The female looses interest in the male soon after the first spermatophore deposition. The male may bite and hold on to the female for a short while afterwards.

Threats and conservation

Given the local abundance of this species and its large distribution, the Chinese Fire-bellied Newt is not immediately endangered. Habitat destruction and degradation are major threats to this species, as well as the use of herbicides and insecticides on rice terraces. The animals are sold by the thousands in pet-markets in China and Europe.

Observations in captivity

This species has been successfully kept and bred in captivity. It can be kept aquatic all year round. Most observations on its behaviour were made in aquariums. It prefers dense vegetation and still water and takes all sorts of living and dead food items. In captivity juveniles can be persuaded to live in water, where they grow faster than on land.