Available year round unless the weather is below -20. This kit ships on Mondays: in order to be in time for shipping the following Monday, your order must be placed by the previous Wednesday at noon.
Included: 30 mixed size Porcellio laevis, our composting isopod, and full instructions. You'll recieve a mix of juvenile and adult; this is our smaller kit size.
The isopods come housed in a shipping container and will need to be rehoused in 1-2 weeks. Additional substrate and housing not included.
This color variation is what they'd look like in the wild in Europe, and is just the common type. Isopods are a fantastic colony organism in the classroom - not insects, but tiny land crustaeans which breathe through gills - with many uses. These are a must-have addition to a Waste in Our World unit, because unlike worms, kids can handle isopods. As an in-home or in-classroom composter, they eat common household veggies and fruits like apple cores, cucumber, carrot, squash, and lettuce. They are relatively tolerant of disturbance and prefer soil and soil-like material for bedding (coconut coir, peat, black earth, decaying wood chips). Their species get comparatively large (2 cm in length). They are easy to feed and care for, and do not bite, fly or jump. They can be housed in everything from a recycled deli container to an aquarium. The cohabitate into a red wiggler container composter, and when combined this way prove more efficient at eating waste than worms on their own - though the compost they produce is not as clean. They do not climb smooth surfaces such as plastic or glass.
Isopods are also a common beneficial in reptile or amphibian vivarium, as they can clean up waste products produced by your other pets: do note that P Laevis is a large, bold isopod, and is not the right choice for all environments because they will actively eat other invertebrates that are molting, such as spiders.
Isopods cannot be released outdoors.
Isopods can be ordered year-round.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Replacement only: no refunds. We have an "arrive alive" guarantee but we cannot guarantee the well-being of the animals past shipping: once they are in your hands, you must be prepared to care for them. Simple instructions will be included with your order, which can be supplemented with research of your own. Remember: you are dealing with living animals who will be reliant on you. Nature is not perfect; in the wild, survival rates would naturally be very low in arthropods. In captivity, you should expect a much higher rate of 70%-90% survival. Please incorporate these statistics into your lesson plan, and never assign a single isopod to a single participant, as some of them will not make it. It is always ideal to observe invertebrates as a population.
SHIPPING: Please review your invoice carefully to ensure there are no mistakes in the information we have been given for you. Ensure your order has been translated correctly. Butterfly Wings N' Wishes is not responsible for shipment delay or failure due to incorrect information on the invoice. If an order is delivered to an incorrect location or is returned to us due to these issues, we may charge an adjustment fee in event that your parcel's delivery must be corrected.
Incomplete orders (missing phone numbers, missing physical address, etc) will be cancelled and refunded. PO boxes are not valid addresses.
If you want separate shipping dates, separate orders must be placed to account for the separate shipping fees: otherwise we will default you to a single shipment at the convenience of the animals.
By agreeing to do business with us you hereby agree to abide by all terms and conditions as presented by Butterfly Wings N' Wishes Ltd: http://www.butterflyab.ca/terms---conditions.html
