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

Description:

Size: up to 13mm

Colour: pinkish

Eyes indistinct, small, round

Antenna 1 peduncle article 1 with 2 ventral spines, article 3 short, accessory flagellum up to 6 segments, flagellum ~20 segmented; antenna 2 flagellum 10-segmented

Coxal plates 1-4 with small posterodistal tooth, coxa 1 slightly expanded distally; epimeral plate 3 hind corner moderately produced, slightly upturned, acute; pleon smooth dorsally; urosome segment 1 with strong postero-dorsal tooth, urosome segment 2 with short teeth

Gnathopods strongly setose; gnathopod 1 merus with brush of dense short seta on lower margin; gnatophod 2 much larger than 1; pereopods 5-7 basis large, broad, hind margins serrate; uropod 3 outer ramus stout, tapering distally

Telson deeply cleft, each lobe with long apical spine, inner and outer margins with single spines

Habitat: clay, sand, silt, stones

Mobility:

Feeding:

Distribution: Barents, Greenland, Chukchi, and Bering Seas, North Atlantic (Gulf of St. Lawrence), littoral and sublittoral, in depths to 240m

Distribution in Svalbard's fjords:

References:

Brandt, A. 1997. Biodiversity of peracarid crustaceans (Malacostraca) from shelf down to the deep Arctic Ocean . Biodiversity and Conservation 6 , pp. 1533-1556.

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 , p. 751.

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. 36 - 38.

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. 306-307.