A review of the families and genera of the hyperiidean amphipod superfamily Phronimoidea Bowman & Gruner, 1973 (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Hyperiidea)
Author
Zeidler, Wolfgang
text
Zootaxa
2004
2004-07-14
567
1
66
journal article
4802
10.11646/zootaxa.567.1.1
173cf168-6357-4b76-955f-7b523590ff1d
11755334
5259734
41C7D868-7BD9-46F4-94F1-EBEA427E2836
Genus
Phronima
Latreille, 1802
Phronima
Latreille, 1802: 38
.
Bivonia
Cocco, 1832: 208
.
Type
species
Cancer sedentarius
Forsskål, 1775
, by monotypy. The
holotype
is in the ZMUC (Forsskål collection).
Diagnosis
Body moderately slender. Pereonites all separate. Pereonites 1 & 2 much narrower, and appreciably deeper, than following ones. Maxilliped with welldeveloped inner lobe, length about half, or more, than that of outer lobes. Gnathopods 1 & 2 weakly cheliform. Pereopod 5 with carpus markedly widened distally, forming strong subchela with propodus; anterior margin of basis to carpus smooth. Uropod 2 present in both sexes; endopod sometimes reduced but never absent.
Ten species.
Remarks
Species of
Phronima
, especially immature specimens, can be difficult to identify.
Shih (1969)
provides basic keys, illustrations and biological information, and
Shih (1991)
provides the latest key to species.
Zeidler (1992a
, 1998) provides additional taxonomic information.
The phronimids are unusual amongst the
Hyperiidea
in that they are often found in transparent barrelshaped “houses” that they have fashioned from tunicates (salps, doliolids and pyrosomes) and sometimes from siphonophores, or even heteropods (
Firoloida
).
Laval (1968b
,
1978
,
1980
) provides more information on
Phronima
and its association with gelatinous ‘barrels’.
Additional biological information on
Phronima
is provided by
Minkiewicz (1909a
, b),
Laval (1968b
,
1980
),
Shih (1969)
,
Repelin (1970
,
1972
),
Laval and Lecher (1995)
,
Land (1981
,
1989
,
1992
),
Vinogradov
et al
. (1982)
,
Diebel (1988)
,
Davenport (1994)
,
Land
et al
. (1995)
and
Zelickman and Por (1996)
.
In view of all the above information that is available in the literature, only minimal additional information is provided here. The synonymy follows that justified by
Shih (1969
,
1991
) and is not discussed further here.
Species of
Phronima
live in surface waters, and are relatively common in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world’s oceans, and rarely cross the Subtropical Convergence.
Phronima sedentaria
is an exception, having a circumglobal distribution between
60°N
and
60°S
, sometimes occurring just south of
60°S
(
Shih 1971a
)