Caprelloidea Leach 1814

Caprellid, "Ghost" or "Skeleton" shrimps, so called for their skeletal appearance. Amphipod crustaceans, easily distinguished by the elongate stick-like body form and reduction of the abdominal appendages. Head is generally fused with pereonite 1. Pereopods on first 2 segments (pereonites) are most flexible and called gnathopods; gnathopods 2 being the largest, used in defense, feeding and substrate attachment. In many species pereopods 3 and 4 may also be reduced or absent. Gills on pereonites 3 + 4, rarely on pereonite 2. Pereopods 5-7 much smaller than 1 + 2, used for clinging to the substratum. In females, brood plates (öostegites) develop on pereonites 3 + 4. Much remains to be learnt about their biology, ecology and in many cases changing distributions.

Caprelloidea is a superfamily of marine crustaceans in the order Amphipoda. It includes "untypical" forms of amphipods, such as the skeleton shrimps (Caprellidae) and whale lice (Cyamidae). The group was formerly treated as one of the four amphipod suborders, Caprellidea, but has been moved down to the superfamily rank by Myers & Lowry (2003, 2013) after phylogenetic studies of the group, and is now contained in the infraorder Corophiida of the suborder Senticaudata. The group includes the following families.

Caprellidae Leach, 1814: Skeleton shrimps Caprogammaridae Kudrjaschov & Vassilenko, 1966 Cyamidae Rafinesque, 1815: Whale lice Dulichiidae Laubitz, 1983 Podoceridae Leach, 1814