Bogidiellidae, Hertzog, 1936

Bradbury, J. H. & Williams, W. D., 1996, Freshwater amphipods from Barrow Island, Western Australia, Records of the Australian Museum 48 (1), pp. 33-74 : 68

Family Bogidiellidae

A species of this family is recorded from a single Barrow Island site described as cave WL8. This record of a bogidiellid from Western Australia is unique. While Stock (1984) recorded Bogidiella (Xystriogidiella) capricornea from Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef, the nearest record is of Bogidiella (Medigidiella) sarawacensis Stock, 1983 from Sarawak.

All Bogidiellids are hypogean or interstitial stygobionts of marine and fresh waters. Holsinger (1993) records 86 subterranean species of 16 genera.

The species recorded here possesses Bogidiellid characteristics of vermiform body, absence of sternal gills, restriction of coxal gills to coxae 4-5-6 without reduction of the sixth gill, free urosomites, gnathopods not mittenform and the first gnathopod dominant, palmar spines simple, rami of uropod three equal and extended beyond the first and second in the entire animal and without article-2 of the outer ramus, the telson uncleft and scarcely emarginate, pleopods uniramous, the lower lip broadly spread by forward extension of the inner lobes, setae of the terminal article of the mandible reduced, the maxillae reduced and without medial setae, and the maxilliped reduced ( Barnard & Barnard, 1983).