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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.
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:
Platyischnopidae is a family of amphipod crustaceans. Its members are characterised by the conical rostrum, which is covered with sensory pits at the end. Although digging behaviour has only been directly observed in a few taxa, it is assumed that all the animals in the family Platyischnopidae are fossorial. The genera included in Platyischnopidae are Skaptopus, Platyischnopus, Indischnopus, Tiburonella, Eudevenopus, Tittakunara, Tomituka and Yurrokus.
Paracalliopiidae is a family of amphipods, containing the following genera:
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.
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.
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.
Gnathia is a genus of isopod crustaceans, containing the following species:
Martensia martensi is a species of amphipod crustacean, and the only species in the genus Martensia. It occurs in waters around Svalbard at depths of 37–95 metres (121–312 ft).
Americorchestia is a genus of beach hoppers in the family Talitridae. There are about five described species in Americorchestia.
Bathyporeiidae is a family of amphipods in the order Amphipoda. There are two genera in Bathyporeiidae:
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.
Dynoides viridis is a species of isopod in the family Sphaeromatidae. It was first found on Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef.
The ipilja-ipilja, or ipilya, is a giant gecko in Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology. He is considered to be the creator of rain and thunder.
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.
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.
References
- 1 2 L. E. Hughes (2009). J. K. Lowry & A. A. Myers (ed.). "Paracalliopiidae" (PDF). Zootaxa . 2260 (Benthic Amphipoda (Crustacea: Peracarida) of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia): 759–765.
