Just an update on my dealings with LiveAquaria. After I emailed them last Friday to complain about being shipped the wrong stomatopods, the manager of Live Aquaria called my home. I was out and my wife took the call and they said that there was nothing they could do until Monday. Monday I called and reached a Drs. Foster and Smith representative who was handling "overflow" phone traffic. She was pleasant enough and said that they could credit me for the three peacocks and ship them when available. That seemed more than fair and I agreed.
This morning I received an email from the LiveAquarium Manager wondering if he had missed my call to discuss the misidentification and apologizing for the error. He contacted the Aquatics Director who was in contact with the Manager of the shipping facility. I was assured that the identifications were corrected and the I would be satisfied with the clown mantis being shipped today.
A couple of hours later I received a second email from the LiveAquaria Manager informing me that the vendor had just checked his inventory and had found that they were in deed the wrong species. They have ordered more and will ship them to me when they arrive.
One thing that I had not realized was that LiveAquaria uses multiple facilities and do not ship from one central location. This obviously creates control problems for them. The identifications will only be as good as the stock manager and/or packer at the shipping location.
I still don't have my Odontodactylus scyllarus, but I do feel that the company is trying to correct the error and is being more than fair. I also suspect that the identifications of O. scyllarus will improve - at least at one location.
Drs. Foster and Smith advertise two mantis shrimps, clowns (Odontodactylus scyllarus) and Lime green (Gonodactylaceus sp.). I identified the photo of the Gonodactylaceus for them a few years back and in all fairness, you can't expect them to identify the various species that they sell in this category. You will get an Indo-Pacific 2-3 inch mantis, probably green, but I have seen them supply G. chiragra, G. smithii, G. ternatensis, G. falcatus, G. glabrous, and G. falcatus. These are all common reef flat species that are shipped by the exporters as "Green Mantis Shrimp".
In summary, I should have held off criticizing Live Aquaria until they had a chance to respond.
Roy