bee shrimp (AquaKitz)

[bmathison1972]

Walk-around of the bee shrimp, Caridina cantonensis Yü, 1938 by AquaKitz, a company that specializes in aquarium equipment for breeding bee shrimp.

Caridina cantonensis is a small freshwater shrimp from streams in southern China. This species has become increasingly popular in the aquaria trade. It comes in a variety of colors, some 'wild type' but also some domestic varieties, usually in combinations of red/white, orange/white, black/white, black/blue.

AquaKitz makes 11 figures, four large (16 cm) and 7 small (5 cm), with one sculpt for each size. The only differences are the colors. Among the large figures, I specifically picked the CBS (crystal black shrimp) as it is one of the wild types. For the two smaller ones I just picked a couple of appealing designs

The large figure is lightweight and comes attached to a foam base. The figure can be removed from the base, but I'll keep mine for safety purposes. The foam base has 'bee shrimp' stamped into it. It is a very nice figure and no assembly is required, but it can be expensive and must ship from Australia. They are hand-made and apparently limited so if you want one, get it quick . They can be bought on ebay or direct from their site (http://aquakitz.com/aquakitz-shrimp-figures/).

A must for taxonomically or ecologically specialized collectors, or collectors of unique species (I am not aware of other bee shrimp figures).

[brontodocus]

Brilliant, especially the large version! Considering the variety of arthropod figures from Japanese toy companies and the popularity of those bee shrimps among aquarium hobbyists it is a bit surprising that apparently no other figures exist.

[Jetoar]

I didnt know figures of these species  .

[bmathison1972]

I have recaptured these images for Postimage.

Also, since the original post, Epoch (2016) released three small figures of bee shrimp, so Aquakitz is no longer the only maker of this species.