Phliantidae is a family of Isopoda-like Amphipoda chiefly from the southern hemisphere.
Description
Members of the family Phliantidae are unusual among the order Amphipoda, because they have dorso-ventrally flattened bodies with a pronounced dorsal keel, rather than being flattened side-to-side.
Because of this, and various other factors, including the square-ended form of the rostrum, they resemble
Isopoda.
Distribution and ecology
Most species are found in the Southern Hemisphere, where they live on
algae in the
intertidal zone.
Taxonomy
Phliantidae was originally proposed by Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing in 1899 for a group that also contained the genera currently placed in the family
Prophliantidae, while
Temnophlias has also been moved from Phliantidae to its own monotypic families.
It contains the following genera:
