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

Description:

Size: up to 28 mm

Colour: yellowish, pinkish with darker banding

Eyes dark, small to medium, oval

Antenna 1 elongate poorly setose; antenna 1 almost as long as body, peduncle article 1 shorter than 2, with 4 ventral spines; antenna 2 shorter than 1

Body slender and compressed; coxal plates 1-4 short, with small posterodistal tooth; epimeral plate 3 distal angle forming large tooth; pleon segments 1-3 with centre tooth and 1-3 lateral denticles on each side, urosome segment 1 with central tooth and lateral denticles, urosome segment 2 with 2 pairs of short teeth and spines

Gnatophod 2 much larger than 1; gnathopod 1 merus with brush of dense short seta on lower margin; pereopods 5-7 robust, basis elongate, weakly expanded, hind edge distinctly serrated; uropod 3 outer ramus long, spinose, inner ramus short, about half length of peduncle

Telson deeply cleft, lobes acute apically, with long notch spines and short inner marginal spines

Habitat: sand, clay, stones

Mobility:

Feeding:

Distribution: widely distributed arctic-boreal species: Arctic Ocean, North Atlantic, North Pacific, depth range: 5-300m

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. 749-750.

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. 17 - 18.

Lincoln, R. J. 1979. British Marine Amphipoda: Gammaridea. Brit. Mus (Natural History. , pp. 304-305.

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.

Sars, G. O. 1890-1895. An account of the Crustacea of Norway with short descriptions and figures of all the species, vol. I: Amphipoda, Cammermayers, pp. 513-514, pl. 181.

Stephensen, K. 1940. The Amphipoda of N. Norway and Spitsbergen with adjacent waters. Tromso Mus. Skr. 3(3) , pp. 307-309.

Węsławski, J. M. 1990. Distribution and ecology of South Spitsbergen coastal marine Amphipoda (Crustacea). Pol. Arch. Hydrobiol. 37 (4) , pp. 503-519.