Amphipod mania

Sorry for the lapse in posts but there's few of us and many invertebrates! So far the cruise has been a great success for the IcyInverts team and everyone on board, it seems! We have had four epibenthic sledge (EBS) casts so far and they have all been successful. We have sampled an incredible diversity of invertebrates and been able to take nice photos of many. Today I'd like to highlight one group that we are targeting - and that is particularly photogenic - Amphipoda.

Amphipods are small (mostly), shrimp-like crustaceans. They belong to the crustacean taxon Peracarida, which also includes the cumaceans we've posted about previously as well as isopods (e.g., "rolly pollies" or "pill bugs" in your back yard) and others. Amphipods are remarkably diverse in Antarctica where they are like the bugs of the sea. Worldwide, there are over 10,000 species named and many more yet to be formally described.

We are collecting specimens of this group in order to determine their evolutionary relationship to other peracarids as part of a recently funded NSF grant project. Read more about our project at www.peracarida.org.

Some amphipods are really beautiful. Here's a few of my favorite photos that I've taken of this taxon so far.

Dr. Kevin Kocot
University of Alabama