Immaculately beautiful, cleared and dual stained mantis shrimp specimens, displayed in 180mm tall x 45mm diameter glass jars. There is a little variation in the colours of these specimens, as they were each treated slightly differently as a means of refining the protocol I’ve been developing to prepare them.

If you’ve been following my work for a while you’ll know that of all the different creatures I’ve prepared over the years, that invertebrates have proven to be the most challenging to prepare consistently. But I think I’ve finally cracked the code with these incredible complex organisms!

Specimens ordered will be picked at random.

These specimens were sourced as food products from the frozen food isle of the supermarket, and come from a farmed colony rather than harvested from the wild. As they have been handled along the packaging and transport chain while frozen, no specimen is completely perfect as some will have the odd antennae, antennules, maxillipeds (the tiny feeding arms), or pereiopods (walking legs) broken or missing. Please zoom in on the images to see them in better detail.

While I generally prefer not to use specimens culled for food in my work (aside from occasional food waste), I made the decision to use commercially available invertebrate specimens as a means to refine my ability to prepare them better in the future.