Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods range in size from 1 to 340 millimetres and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 9,900 amphipod species so far described. They are mostly marine animals, but are found in almost all aquatic environments. Some 1,900 species live in fresh water, and the order also includes the terrestrial sandhoppers such as Talitrus saltator.
Gammaridea is one of the suborders of the order Amphipoda, comprising small, shrimp-like crustaceans. Until recently, in a traditional classification, it encompassed about 7,275 (92%) of the 7,900 species of amphipods described by then, in approximately 1,000 genera, divided among around 125 families. That concept of Gammaridea included almost all freshwater amphipods, while most of the members still were marine.
The Ampeliscidae are a family of amphipods, distinct enough to warrant placement in a monotypic superfamily Ampeliscoidea. They are benthic, found at the bottom of seas and oceans. They are distributed worldwide, and are often abundant in areas with fine sediments. They live in infaunal tubes, constructed from "amphipod silk" and sediment.
Hadziidae is a family of amphipods, which is difficult to distinguish from the related family Melitidae. It contains the following genera:
Melphidippidae is a family of amphipods which rest upside-down and feed on particles of food suspended in the water. Three genera are recognised:
Phliantidae is a family of isopod-like amphipod crustaceans chiefly from the southern hemisphere.
Oedicerotidae is a family of amphipods. It comprises the following genera:
Paracalliopiidae is a family of amphipods, containing the following genera:
Melitidae is a family of amphipods. It contains around 45 genera, and formerly included a further 40 genera that are now placed in the family Maeridae.
Leucothoidae is a family of amphipods. It contains 138 species in 5 genera:
Cyproideidae is a family of amphipod crustaceans. Eighteen genera and 43 species have been described as of 2009. They mostly occur mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, where they form associations with corals, sponges, crinoids and hydroids.
Yhi yindi is a species of amphipod crustacean, known only from Orpheus Island, Queensland, Australia. It was described in 1991 by J. Laurens Barnard and J. D. Thomas, and remains the only species in the genus Yhi.
Maeridae is a family of marine amphipods, which was first described by Taudl Krapp-Schickel in 2008.
James Kenneth Lowry is a zoologist specialising in amphipods.
Elasmopus is a cosmopolitan genus of amphipods in the family, Maeridae, and was first described in 1853 by Achille Costa. The type species is Elasmopus rapaxCosta, 1853.
Elasmopus arrawarra is a marine species of amphipod in the family, Maeridae, and was first described in 2006 by Lauren E. Hughes and James K. Lowry.
Elasmopus arafura is a marine species of amphipod in the family, Maeridae, and was first described in 2011 by Lauren E. Hughes and James K. Lowry, from a specimen collected at "The Blow-holes", Point Quobba on an exposed intertidal rock shelf.
Lauren Elizabeth Hughes is an Australian carcinologist and curator. She specialises in the study of amphipods.
Aborolobatea is a genus of crustaceans in the Oedicerotidae family, and was first described in 1984 by Michel Ledoyer.
Aborolobatea paracheliformis is a marine species of crustaceans in the Oedicerotidae family, and was first described in 1984 by Michel Ledoyer.
