G 3.0
Questions asked before a first order
Grades, holding fluid, purchase orders, shipping windows, substitutions, returns and storage — answered at the length the answer needs rather than the length that would look tidy.
These are the questions people genuinely ask on a first call.
Questions specific to one group — which grade a frog lab needs, what is in a phylum survey set, which blade fits which handle — are answered at the bottom of that group's own page. What is here is the general set: how the money and the paperwork work, what the grades mean, why living material has its own calendar, and what happens when something goes wrong.
G 3.1 Ordering
Ordering
Do I have to know the species before I telephone?
No, and it is often better if you do not. Telephone with the lesson — what it has to show, how many students work in pairs, which week — and we will name the species and grade that fit. If you come with a species and no grade, we will ask about the lesson anyway, because the grade is the half of the specification that moves the price.
Why a quotation before a purchase order?
Because a purchase order raised against “12 frogs” approves a species name, and a purchase order raised against a quotation approves a species, a grade, a size, a holding fluid and a pack size. The second one can be checked against the box when it arrives. The first one cannot, which is how a department ends up with material that is technically what they ordered and not what they needed.
How long does a quotation take?
One working day, usually the same day if you telephone in the morning. Order processing after a purchase order is released is 24 to 48 hours. Everything else in the timeline is your procurement cycle and the carrier.
Do you take purchase orders and net terms?
Yes to institutional and district purchase orders quoting the quotation number. Net terms are available where they have been established in advance — ask on the first call rather than at the point of ordering. Cards are accepted. Tax-exempt institutions send a certificate once and we hold it on file.
We have to register you as a supplier first. Is that a problem?
Not a problem, but tell us at the first call rather than at the point of raising the order. Registration in a district or university procurement system is routine and is rarely quick, and it is the most common reason an order that was going to be fine misses a lab week.
Can you hold an order for a specific week?
Yes, and for living material this is the normal way to order. Place the order when the budget allows, name the delivery week, and we schedule the ship date against it. The ship date is confirmed on the quotation, so nothing leaves early and nothing has to be chased.
G 3.2 Specimens and grades
Specimens and grades
What does injected actually mean, and do I need it?
Injected means the vessels have been filled with coloured latex so they can be followed by eye: arteries at single injection, arteries and veins at double, and the hepatic portal system as well at triple. You need it if the lesson traces a system. You do not need it if the lesson identifies organs, and for that lesson a plain specimen is the correct choice rather than the cheap one. The grades page goes through it properly.
Formalin-fixed or formalin-free?
Formalin is the traditional fixative and it works, but it is an irritant and a recognised carcinogen, and a room using it needs real ventilation and a district that has approved it. Formalin-free holding fluids hold a specimen that has already been fixed, and they are what most school districts now specify. They also avoid the hazardous-materials surcharge on shipping. If you do not say which you want, we will ask rather than guess.
How many specimens for a class of thirty?
Working in pairs, fifteen plus two or three spares. Something gets dropped, mis-cut or ruined by an over-enthusiastic first incision in almost every session, and a spare specimen costs a great deal less than a student standing and watching. On a large specimen such as a cat or a shark, where students work in threes, ten plus one.
Will two specimens of the same species look the same?
Broadly, not exactly. A preserved specimen is an animal rather than a manufactured part. Size bands are ranges, and colour, condition, the exact course of a vessel and organ size all vary between individuals — which is itself worth pointing out to a class that has only ever seen the textbook diagram.
Can a specimen be kept for next year?
Yes, if it is kept wet and sealed. Return it to a holding bag with a little fluid, seal it, and store it cool and dark. What ruins a stored specimen is drying out, so the thing to check in August is whether a bag has lost its seal.
G 3.3 Living material
Living material
Why does living material only ship Monday to Wednesday?
So that nothing is in transit over a weekend. Protozoa in a tube have a window measured in days and live invertebrates have a temperature range; both of them lose it sitting in a depot from Friday to Monday. A carrier will happily accept a live shipment on a Thursday. We will not send one, because the carrier is not the one explaining a dead culture to a class on Monday morning.
What if a culture arrives dead?
Telephone us the day it lands and it is replaced on the next available shipping day at no charge. Where a replacement cannot reach you in time for the lesson it was bought for, we refund it rather than sending it late. The window is short for living material because after a few days on a windowsill nobody can tell whether it arrived dead or died in the prep room.
How long will a culture hold before the lesson?
It depends on the organism, and the packing slip states it for the one you received. As a planning figure: protozoa and algae hold several days at room temperature out of direct sun, bacterial slants hold longer refrigerated, and live invertebrates want to be out of the box the day they arrive. Order to land one or two days before the class, not a week before.
Are the bacterial cultures safe in a school lab?
They are non-pathogenic teaching strains, and they are the strains school and college microbiology is taught with. They still need ordinary aseptic technique and proper disposal — plates and slants autoclaved or disinfected before the bin, never rinsed down a sink. See holding fluid and safety.
G 3.4 Delivery, problems and returns
Delivery, problems and returns
What happens if an item is short?
You get a telephone call before the order ships. We do not substitute a species, a grade or a size for another one without asking, even where the substitute costs more, because a specimen that is not the one the lesson was built on is not a favour. The substitutions page sets out the options.
What if something arrives wrong?
Tell us within one week of receipt for preserved material and we will replace it or refund that item, with no restocking charge. Living material should be reported the day it arrives. Unpack against the packing list when the box lands rather than on the morning of the lab — a box opened six weeks later is one nobody can now say anything useful about.
Why is shipping quoted separately?
Because folding it into a unit price is exactly how two catalogues stop being comparable. Preserved specimens are heavy for their size, living material needs expedited service and insulated packing, and formalin-fixed material carries a hazardous-materials surcharge. All of those are itemised on the quotation so you can see what you are paying for and what you could avoid.
Do you ship outside the United States?
No. Live organisms and preserved animal material cross borders under permit regimes that vary by country and by species, and we would rather say no than promise something that gets held at a border.
G 3.5 This site
This site
Why is the catalogue arranged as a key?
Because that is how this trade already identifies things, and because it asks the questions a category grid assumes you have already answered. A grid assumes you know which heading your specimen lives under and which grade you need. A key asks instead, and each question removes an ambiguity that would otherwise be settled by whoever picks your order.
Why are there no prices behind a login?
A department building a budget needs the figure before it can justify asking for it. Hiding the number behind a login makes a teacher spend a telephone call establishing whether they can afford to ask, which serves us rather than them. Every figure here carries the review date and the pack size that qualify it.
There is no email address or contact form. Why?
Because there is not one to publish yet. Rather than print an address that bounces or a form that delivers nowhere, the site publishes the telephone number, which is answered. When an address exists, it will appear here and the form will come with it.
Does this site track me?
Not at present. It sets no cookies of its own, loads nothing from a content delivery network, and in its current configuration makes no external network requests at all. It is built to load one Microsoft Advertising tag while we run paid search, and the cookie policy is generated from the same setting that switches that tag on, so it cannot drift out of date.
Not answered here?
Telephone and ask. There is no queue and no ticket number, and most questions about a grade, a pack size or a lab week take about two minutes.
Niles Biological, Inc. · 9298 Elder Creek Rd, Sacramento, CA 95829