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 and Arcitalitrus sylvaticus.
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.
Corophiidae is a family of amphipods, containing the following genera:
Corophiida is an infraorder of amphipods that contains the two parvorders Caprellidira and Corophiidira.
Talitridae is a family of amphipods. Terrestrial species are often referred to as landhoppers and beach dwellers are called sandhoppers or sand fleas. The name sand flea is misleading, though, because these talitrid amphipods are not siphonapterans, do not bite people, and are not limited to sandy beaches.
Oedicerotidae is a family of amphipods. It comprises the following genera:
Gammaridae is a family of amphipods. In North America they are included among the folk taxonomic category of "scuds", and otherwise gammarids is usually used as a common name.
Gammarus is an amphipod crustacean genus in the family Gammaridae. It contains more than 200 described species, making it one of the most species-rich genera of crustaceans. Different species have different optimal conditions, particularly in terms of salinity, and different tolerances; Gammarus pulex, for instance, is a purely freshwater species, while Gammarus locusta is estuarine, only living where the salinity is greater than 25‰.
Niphargidae is a family of amphipod crustaceans. Its distribution is in western Eurasia, and its members mainly live in subterranean freshwaters habitats. It contains the following genera:
Platorchestia is a genus of sand flea, containing the following species:
Arcitalitrus is a genus of beach hoppers in the family Talitridae. There are nine described species in Arcitalitrus.
Americorchestia is a genus of beach hoppers in the family Talitridae. There are about five described species in Americorchestia.
Siriella is a genus of mysid crustaceans form the family Mysidae, consisting of approximately 90 species. Found in all seas except cold Arctic and Antarctic waters, the genus is most diverse in tropics.
Pseudamphithoides incurvaria is a species of amphipod crustacean in the family Ampithoidae. It is native to shallow water in the tropical western Atlantic Ocean where it creates a home for itself from fragments of the algae on which it feeds. This seaweed contains certain chemicals that are distasteful and protect it from predatory fish.
Nanhaipotamon is a genus of freshwater crabs, in the subfamily Potamiscinae, found in southern China and Taiwan. As of 2018, 18 species have been described. The genus is named after the South China Sea, for it occurs mostly in coastal areas. The genus was first described by R. Bott in 1968 as Isolapotamon (Nanhaipotamon), i.e., a subgenus of Isolapotamon.
Caprella unica is a species of skeleton shrimp in the genus Caprella within the family Caprellidae. The larvae are plankton-like. They are relatively small, with two large and two small antennae. They only live in the sea, and are widely found in Cape Cod, Maine and Newfoundland.
Bougisia is a genus of plankton in the sub-order Hyperiidea – a type of so-called "hyperid" amphipoda. The genus Bougisia is the only subordinate taxon in the monotypic family Bougisidae. The genus Bougisia is also monotypic, being represented by the single species, Bougisia ornata. This species lives as plankton in tropical and sub-tropical salt water. Hyperiidea species normally have a physique that differs from other types of amphipod.
Eurythenes is a genus of marine amphipods in the family Eurytheneidae.
Iphigenellidae is a freshwater family of amphipods in the superfamily Gammaroidea. It is found in the Ponto-Caspian region, which encompasses the Black, Azov, and Caspian Seas.
Lauren Elizabeth Hughes is an Australian carcinologist and curator. She specialises in the study of amphipods.
