The Higher Classification in Amphipods
1975; Brill; Volume: 28; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1163/156854075x00586
ISSN1568-5403
AutoresGordan S. Karaman, J.L. Barnard,
Tópico(s)Aquatic Invertebrate Ecology and Behavior
ResumoBousfield's recent book Shallow-water Gammaridean Amphipoda of New England' ' advances that faunal element into sharp focus with excellent illustrations, workable keys and extensive descriptions. Within its faunal province, the value of this work is uncontested. Unfortunately, the higher classification proposed in that book leaves much to be desired. A handbook is a poor medium in which to present important revisions of families. Only the barest outline of this revisionary work has been presented. While we hopefully await a complete treatise on the revision of the Gammaridae, the classification of this family and its allies remains tangled as a result of Dr. Bousfield's presentation. Bousfield divides the Gammaridae into Gammaridae, Crangonicidae (properly spelled Crangonychidae) and Melitidae (of which Hadziidae and Beaudettiidae are presumed senior synonyms). Of the 160+ known genera in the Gammaridae, Bousfield allocates and considers only approximatety 20. Any reasonably com petent taxonomist can, of course, allocate many other gammarus-like genera to the Gammaridae, especially some of those with spinose urosomes, without Bous field having to state the precise composition of the family. Another dozen or more genera can be visualized fairly easily as belonging to the Hadziidae ( = PMelitidae) but a rather significant residue of genera not clearly belonging to any of Bousfield's families remains, among them such evolutionarily important marine genera as Weyprechtia, Gammaracanthus and Gammarellus-, and such Palearctic fresh-brackish water genera as Echinogammarus, Pontogammarus, Chae togammarus, Iphigenella, and Cardiophilus. We must include Gammarellus in the marine list even though Bousfield in cluded it within his concept of Gammaridae, because we believe that the diag nosis of Gammaridae could have been made more cohesive by its rejection. Though differing in several characters of possible importance (lower lip, maxilla 2) from Calliopius, Gammarellus appears to share a common ancestry with Calliopius. The
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