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.
Odiidae is a family of amphipods, sometimes included in the family Ochlesidae. It includes the following genera:
Corophiida is an infraorder of amphipods that contains the two parvorders Caprellidira and Corophiidira.
Melphidippidae is a family of amphipods which rest upside-down and feed on particles of food suspended in the water. Three genera are recognised:
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.
Paracalliopiidae is a family of amphipods, containing the following genera:
Pallaseidae is a family of amphipod crustaceans endemic to Lake Baikal. Some species are also found in the Angara River which flows out of Lake Baikal, and one species is distributed throughout Northern Palearctic. The composition of the family is a subject of discussion, with different sources listing either 9 genera and 58 species, or 8 genera and 20 species. They are benthic, nectobenthic or epibiotic.
Babr is a genus of amphipod crustaceans in the family Pallaseidae, endemic to Lake Baikal. There are 2 species in the genus.
Corophiidira is a parvorder of marine amphipod crustaceans in the infraorder Corophiida. In a previous classification, this taxon was treated as an infraorder and was then itself called Corophiida.
Caprelloidea is a superfamily of marine crustaceans in the order Amphipoda. It includes "untypical" forms of amphipods, such as the skeleton shrimps (Caprellidae) and whale lice (Cyamidae). The group was formerly treated as one of the four amphipod suborders, Caprellidea, but has been moved down to the superfamily rank by Myers & Lowry after phylogenetic studies of the group, and is now contained in the infraorder Corophiida of the suborder Senticaudata. The group includes the following families.
Talitrida is an infraorder of amphipods in the subclass Senticaudata.
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.
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.
Maeridae is a family of marine amphipods, which was first described by Taudl Krapp-Schickel in 2008.
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.
Bellorchestia marmorata is a marine amphipod in the Talitridae family.
James Kenneth Lowry was a zoologist specialising in amphipods.
Lauren Elizabeth Hughes is an Australian carcinologist and curator. She specialises in the study of amphipods.
