Phliantidae is a
family of
isopod
Isopoda is an order of crustaceans that includes woodlice and their relatives. Isopods live in the sea, in fresh water, or on land. All have rigid, segmented exoskeletons, two pairs of antennae, seven pairs of jointed limbs on the thorax, an ...
-like
amphipod
Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 9,900 amphipod species so far descr ...
crustaceans chiefly from the southern hemisphere.
Description
Members of the family Phliantidae are unusual among the order Amphipoda, because they have dorso-ventrally flattened bodies with a pronounced dorsal keel, rather than being flattened side-to-side. Because of this, and various other factors, including the square-ended form of the
rostrum, they resemble
isopods.
Distribution and ecology
Most species are found in the
Southern Hemisphere, where they live on
algae
Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...
in the
intertidal zone
The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore, is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide (in other words, the area within the tidal range). This area can include several types of habitats with various species o ...
.
Taxonomy
Phliantidae was originally proposed by
Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing in 1899 for a group that also contained the genera currently placed in the family
Prophliantidae, while ''
Temnophlias'' has also been moved from Phliantidae to its own monotypic families. It contains the following genera:
*''
Iphinotus''
Stebbing, 1899
*''
Palinnotus''
Stebbing, 1900
*''
Pariphinotus''
Kunkel, 1910
*''
Pereionotus''
Bate & Westwood, 1862
*''
Plioplateia''
Barnard, 1916
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3934327
Gammaridea
Taxa named by Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing
Crustacean families