Oplophoridae Dana, 1852

Wasmer, Robert A., 2022, A new species of Hymenodora (Crustacea: Decapoda: Oplophoridae) from abyssopelagic depths of the central North Pacific Ocean, Zootaxa 5155 (4), pp. 589-599 : 590

Family Oplophoridae Dana, 1852

Remarks. For a long time, the oplophorid shrimps were considered to consist of a single pelagic family, Oplophoridae s.l., including 10 genera and about 70 species ( Chace, 1986). Recently, the Oplophoridae has been the subject of several molecular studies seeking to better understand the phylogeny of the family. Bracken-Grissom, et.al. (2009) found very little support for a monophyletic Oplophoridae and split the family into the families Acanthephyridae Spence Bate (1888) , containing seven genera: Acanthephyra A. Milne-Edwards, 1881 , Ephyrina Smith, 1885 , Heterogenys Chace, 1886 , Hymenodora, G. O. Sars, 1877 , Kemphyra Chace, 1986 , Meningodora Smith, 1882 , and Notostomus A. Milne-Edwards, 1881 ; the family Oplophoridae Dana, 1852 , was restricted to three genera: Janicella Chace, 1986 , Oplophorus H. Milne Edwards, 1837 , and Systellaspis, Spence Bate, 1888 . A more recent molecular study ( Wong et al. 2015) restored the Oplophoridae to monophyly. Further, Lunina et al. (2019) provided molecular evidence to again consider Oplophoridae as consisting of Oplophoridae and Acanthephyridae . Alves-Júnior et al. (2019) use both Acanthephyridae and Oplophoridae in their paper on the taxonomy of deep-sea shrimps from Brazilian waters of the southwestern Atlantic. In light of these molecular ambiguities, I believe it to be conservative here to use, for the time being, Oplophoridae . as the family to which the genus Hymenodora belongs.