MELITIDAE, Bousfield, 1973

Mead, A., Carlton, J. T., Griffiths, C. L. & Rius, M., 2011, Introduced and cryptogenic marine and estuarine species of South Africa, Journal of Natural History 45 (39 - 40), pp. 2463-2524 : 2486

Family MELITIDAE

Melita zeylanica Stebbing, 1904 Cryptogenic (= Melita inaequistylis of Barnard 1916, not Dana 1852)

This widespread brackish-water amphipod has been recorded from Australia and throughout the Indian Ocean. It occurs in South African estuaries, at times in vast numbers, for example among the tubes of the introduced tubeworm Ficopomatus enigmaticus in Zandvlei Lagoon (False Bay). Of interest is that early brackish-water collections of gammarids in locations where Melita zeylanica is now abundant did not find this species. Barnard (1916) therefore reported Austrochiltonia capensis (as Chiltonia capensis ) from Milnerton in 1898 and 1913, in “brack[ish]-waters among green weeds,” whereas the first specimens of Melita zeylanica were not reported until 1940, by Barnard, based upon specimens collected in 1931 and 1938 from several South African estuaries. However, Barnard (1916) reported collections of Melita as Melita inaequistylis in 1897 and 1914, but by 1940 he judged South African Melita to belong to either a new species ( Melita orgasmos ) or to Melita zeylanica (which in 1916 he had treated as a junior synonym of inaequistylis ). While Barnard (1940) referred to his Melita inaequistylis of 1916 as being in part referable to Melita zeylanica , he did not indicate which locations of the 1898 or 1914 material might be zeylanica . Although compelled by the apparent absence of Melita zeylanica from the locations that produced Austrochiltonia , we treat Melita as cryptogenic, in part pending re-examination of this earlier material. Ship fouling and ballast water are the likely vectors.