Family SQUILLIDAE Latreille, 1802

Museums

Regional Maps

• Squillares Latreille, P.A. 1802. Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière des Crustacés et des Insectes. Ouvrage faisant suite à l’histoire naturelle générale et particulière, composée par Leclerc de Buffon, et rédigée par C.S. Sonnini, membre de plusieurs sociétés savantes. Familles naturelles des genres. Tome troisième. Paris : F. Dufart xii + 13–467 + [1] pp. [An "X" (title page = 1802)] [36].

  Type genus:

   Squilla Fabricius, 1787.
• Harpiosquillidae Manning, R.B. 1980. The superfamilies, families, and genera of recent stomatopod Crustacea, with diagnoses of six new families. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 93(2): 362-372 [367, 369].

  Type genus:

   Harpiosquilla Holthuis, 1964.

Introduction

The Squillidae was the first named of the stomatopod families and is the largest. It comprises 44 described genera worldwide, 37 in the Indo-west Pacific, and 25 from Australia. Fifty-nine species are reported from Australia, but ongoing revisionary work will expand the Australian faunal list markedly.

Squillids occupy burrows in soft substrates and forage actively at night. Hence, squillids are the most common stomatopods encountered by trawl fishermen, and several species are fished commercially on the east coast of Australia.

Ahyong (2001) provided keys to all squilloid genera and keys to all species of genera represented in Australia.

Diagnosis

Cornea with two rows of hexagonal ommatidia in the mid-band. Third and fourth maxillipeds with propodi slender, not ribbed ventrally. Body depressed, compact. Raptorial claw with ischiomeral articulation terminal, dactylus uninflated basally, with spined inner margin. Telson with distinct median carina; submedian teeth with fixed or movable apices; with four or more intermediate denticles. Uropodal protopod with one or two primary spines; articulation of exopod segments terminal.

General References

Ahyong, S.T. 2001. Revision of the Australian Stomatopod Crustacea. Records of the Australian Museum Suppl. 26: 1-326

History of changes