Melitidae Bousfield, 1973

Lowry, JK & Springthorpe, RT, 2005, New and Little-known Melitid Amphipods from Australian Waters (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Melitidae), Records of the Australian Museum 57, pp. 237-302 : 241

Melitidae Bousfield, 1973

Lowry & Watson (2002) reviewed the discussion of informal groups within the Melitidae . They found a “ Maera-Elasmopus group” and a “ Melita-Eriopisa ” group recognized by Bousfield (1977) and a “ Nuuanu group” recognized by McKinney & Barnard (1977). Barnard & Barnard (1983) recognized a Ceradocus group ( Maera-Elasmopus group of Bousfield, 1977), a Ceradocopsis group, an Eriopisa group, a Nuuana group ( Nuuanu group of McKinney & Barnard, 1977), a Melita group (Melita-Eriopisa group of Bousfield, 1977) and a Parapherusa group.

The Melitidae as conceived by Bousfield (1973) is not well defined and we can find no synapomorphy to define the whole group. In fact there appears to be very few widespread synapomorphies within the group. The extremely unequal rami of uropod 3 (the inner ramus is scale-like and the outer ramus is at least 3× longer than wide) appears to be a synapomorphy that defines a Melita and an Eriopisa group. The Eriopisa group has an extremely well-developed second article on the outer ramus of uropod 3, another strong synapomorphy that separates this group from the Melita group. A third synapomorphy (two groups of small setae guarded by spines on the dorsum of urosomite 2) occurs throughout the Melita group and the Nuuana group, but not in the Eriopisa group.

The Ceradocopsis , Ceradocus and Parapherusa groups all appear to be paraphyletic assemblages at best, with no defining synapomorphies. In this paper, for practical reasons, we recognize a Ceradocopsis group, a Ceradocus group (including Parapherusa ), an Eriopisa group, a Nuuana group and a Melita group.