Melitidae (Bousfield, 1973)

Bradbury, J. H. & Williams, W. D., 1996, Freshwater amphipods from Barrow Island, Western Australia, Records of the Australian Museum 48 (1), pp. 33-74 : 34

Family Melitidae

Barnard & Williams (1995) assigned Nedsia to the family Melitidae , within the hadzioid superfamily. The hadziid/melitid group is complex and not clearly defined. Holsinger (1994) groups Melitidae within the Hadziidae , pointing to "considerable taxonomic instability within this group, much of which has apparently resulted from rampant parallelism and excessive homoplasy." We do not wish to add to the confusion over affinities within this group, so accept Barnard & Williams (1995) placement for the present.

The genus displays similarities to eriopisids ( Karaman, 1984), particularly in the presence of an elongate second article of the outer ramus of the third uropod, which is uncommon, but does occur elsewhere, for example, in Pseudoniphargus adriaticus Karaman, 1955 and Niphargus longicaudatus Costa, 1851 . Unlike Eriopisa or Psammogammarus , however, the anterior coxae of Nedsia are not significantly reduced, nor is the female second gnathopod hadziid, or the first gnathopod ceradocid as in Psammogammarus . Moreover, the mandibular palp is reduced to two articles, although the terminal article is linear as in eriopisids, rather than falcate with distinct D- and E-setae as in Hadzia .