Amaryllididae (Amphipoda): World Genera and Australian Species

J.K. Lowry & N.M. Kilgallen
Division of Invertebrate Zoology
The Australian Museum
6 College Street, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia
Phone: 612 9320 6260
Fax: 612 9320 6050

Email: jimlowry@crustacea.net
Niamh.Kilgallen@austmus.gov.au

The Amaryllididae Lowry & Stoddart, 2002a, are a cosmopolitan group of lysianassoid amphipod. The genus Amaryllis was originally described by Haswell (1879) for two species, A. macrophthalma and A. brevicornis, and was placed in the “sub-family Stegocephalides”. Stebbing (1888) later transferred Amaryllis to the Lysianassidae. Lowry & Stoddart (2002) were responsible for the major taxonomic work on the group. After establishing the family Amaryllididae in a separate publication (Lowry & Stoddart, 2002a), they divided the family in to two subfamilies, the Amaryllidinae and the Vijayiinae. According to them, the Amaryllidinae are a commensal shallow-water group with sub-conical mouthparts, while the Vijayiiinae are a presumed free-living deep-water group with a sub-quadrate mouthpart bundle. While the amaryllidines are confined in distribution to the southern hemisphere, the vijayiines are found almost exclusively in the deep seas of the North and South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans, with the exception of one, Vijay tenuipes Walker, 1904.

Currently, there are 34 species in eight genera known worldwide. Of these, 23 species in five genera have been recorded from Australia.

This publication should be cited as : Lowry, J.K. & Kilgallen, N.M. 2008. Amaryllididae (Amphipoda): World Genera and Australian Species. Version 1. 1 January 2008. https://crustacea.net.