Suborder: GAMMARIDEA  Latreille, 1802
Infraorder: Gammarida  Latreille, 1802
Family: Melitidae  Bousfield, 1973
Genus: : Melita Leach, 1814    

Description:

Size: up to 30 mm

Colour: pinkish

Eyes dark, small to medium, oval

Antenna 1, peduncle article 1 with 3-4 ventral spines

Body slender and compressed; coxal plates 1-4 short, with small posterodistal tooth; epimeral plate 3 distal angle forming large tooth; pleon segments 2-3 with single mid-dorsal tooth, urosome segment 1 with mid-dorsal and adjacent teeth, urosome segment 2 with paired small dorso-lateral teeth

Gnatophod 2 much larger than 1; pereopods 5-7 basis elongate, narrow, rectilinear, posterior margin strongly serrate; uropod 3 outer ramus long, spinose, inner ramus short, oval

Telson cleft to base, lobes acute apically, each lobe with single inner and outer notch spines

Habitat: clay, sand, gravel, stones

Mobility:

Feeding:

Distribution: Greenland , Siberian and Canadian Arctic, circumpolar, in depths to 480m

Distribution in Svalbard's fjords:

References:

Bryazgin, V. 1997. Diversity, distribution and ecology of benthic amphipods (Amphipoda, Gammaridea) in the Barents Sea sublittoral. Pol. Polar Res. 18(2) , pp. 89-106.

Gurjanova, E. F. 1951. Bokoplavy morjej SSSR I sopredel'nykh vod (Amphipoda - Gammaridea). Akad. Nauk SSSR, Opredel. Faune SSSR 41 , pp. 748-749.

Jarrett , N.J. , Bousfield, E. L. 1996. The amphipod superfamily Hadzioidea on the Pacific coast of North America : family Melitidae. Part I. The Melita group: systematic and distributional ecology. Amphipacifica II (2) , pp. 38 - 39.

Sainte-Marie, B., Brunel, P. 1985. Suprabenthic gradients of swimming activity by cold-water gammaridean amphipod Crustacea over a muddy shelf in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence . Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 23 , pp. 57-69.

Stephensen, K. 1940. The Amphipoda of N. Norway and Spitsbergen with adjacent waters. Tromso Mus. Skr. 3(3) , pp. 309.

Węsławski, J. M. 1990. Distribution and ecology of South Spitsbergen coastal marine Amphipoda (Crustacea). Pol. Arch. Hydrobiol. 37, pp. 503-519.