Suborder INGOLFIELLOIDEA Hansen, 1903

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Introduction

Ingolfiellideans are a small group (about 30 species) of interstitial marine and freshwater amphipods. They are best known for their vestigial 'eye lobe', the main character for their suborder status. Dahl (1977) argued convincingly against separate suborder status and Lowry & Poore (1989) have followed his approach. In the Catalogue we follow a conservative approach. The question remains as to whether these amphipods are near the stem amphipods or are highly derived forms of some more advancecd group. There are two recognised families, the Ingolfiellidae and the Metangolfiellidae, the latter a monotypic family not considered further here because no species occur in Austalia.
Ingolfiellideans are known from marine to limnic habitats, and they are eurythermal and eurybathic, mainly interstitial, amphipods. Stock (1977) gives the most comprehensive discussion of the zoogeography of ingolfiellideans.
Nothing is known about the life histories of ingolfiellideans and little is known about their ecology.

General References

Dahl, E. 1977. The amphipod functional model and its bearing upon systematics and phylogeny. Zoological Science (Tokyo) 6: 221-228

Lowry, J.K. & Poore, G.C.B. 1989. First ingolfiellids from the Southwest Pacific (Crustacea: Amphipoda) with a discussion of their systematics. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 102(4): 933-946

Stock, J. 1977. The zoogeography of the crustacean suborder Ingolfiellidea with descriptions of new West Indian taxa. Studies on the Fauna of Curaçao and other Caribbean Islands 55: 131-146

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