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.
The Reverend Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing was a British zoologist, who described himself as "a serf to natural history, principally employed about Crustacea". Educated in London and Oxford, he only took to natural history in his thirties, having worked as a teacher until then. Although an ordained Anglican priest, Stebbing promoted Darwinism in a number of popular works, and was banned from preaching as a result. His scientific works mostly concerned crustaceans, especially the Amphipoda and Isopoda, the most notable being his work on the amphipods of the Challenger expedition.
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:
Chaetocorophium is a monotypic genus of amphipods in the family Corophiidae, containing only the species Chaetocorophium lucasi. Chaetocorophium is very closely related to Paracorophium, and some researchers propose synonymising the two genera.
Paracorophium is a genus of amphipods in the family Corophiidae.
Paraleptamphopus is a genus of amphipods in the family Paraleptamphopidae endemic to New Zealand. The first species to be described was Calliope subterraneus which was named by Charles Chilton in 1882. George M. Thomson described a second species in 1885, as Pherusa coerulea. Although no other species have yet been formally described, it is thought that many more undescribed species exist.
Paracalliope is a genus of amphipod crustaceans that live in Australasia. They include the most common freshwater amphipods in New Zealand, where they are particularly frequent in slow-flowing reaches of rivers. They shelter among weed beds and are important prey items for fish such as the New Zealand smelt, Retropinna retropinna, which are in turn important prey for the freshwater eels Anguilla australis and Anguilla dieffenbachii. Paracalliope acts as an intermediate host for the nematode Hedruris spinigera, which can thus reach their primary host, the eel.
Paracrangonyx is a genus of amphipods in the family Paracrangonyctidae, comprising two species, Paracrangonyx compactus and Paracrangonyz winterbourni.
Phreatogammarus is a genus of amphipod crustaceans that are endemic to New Zealand. It is the only genus in the family Phreatogammaridae, and contains four species, three of which were described by Charles Chilton.
Charles Chilton was a New Zealand zoologist, the first rector to be appointed in Australasia, and the first person to be awarded a D.Sc. degree in New Zealand.
Iphimedia is a genus of amphipods which belongs to the family Iphimediidae in the arthropod group Amphipoda. It is the only genus of the family to have species which live in tropical waters. All other genera of the family are only found in cold or deep oceans.
Amarinus lacustris is a species of freshwater crab from Australia, New Zealand and nearby islands, where it lives in water of various salinities. It grows up to 10 mm (0.4 in) wide, with an H-shaped groove on its back. It is an omnivore and is eaten by crayfish and fish. It was first discovered in Lake Pupuke, near Auckland, and is the only freshwater crab in New Zealand.
Nototropis falcatus is a species of amphipod crustacean. It is whitish in colour, with brown patches, and grows to a total length of around 7 mm (0.3 in). It lives on soft sediment such as fine sand at depths of 10 to 50 metres, from northern Norway to the west coast of Ireland, including the North Sea, and as far south as the southern Bay of Biscay.
Stegocephalidae is a little-studied family of amphipods belonging to the suborder Gammaridea.
Caprella mutica, commonly known as the Japanese skeleton shrimp, is a species of skeleton shrimp. They are relatively large caprellids, reaching a maximum length of 50 mm (2.0 in). They are sexually dimorphic, with the males usually being much larger than the females. They are characterized by their "hairy" first and second thoracic segments and the rows of spines on their bodies. Body color ranges from green to red to blue, depending on the environment. They are omnivorous highly adaptable opportunistic feeders. In turn, they provide a valuable food source for fish, crabs, and other larger predators. They are usually found in dense colonies attached to submerged man-made structures, floating seaweed, and other organisms.
Themisto is a genus of marine amphipods in the family Hyperiidae. Their distribution is cosmopolitan.
Paramoera walkeri is an amphipod of the genus Paramoera. It lives around Antarctica.
Parawaldeckia is a genus of amphipod crustacean in the family, Lysianassidae. and was first described by Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing in 1910. The type species is Parawaldeckia thomsoni.
