Glyphocrangonidae Smith, 1884

Wicksten, Mary K., 2012, Decapod Crustacea of the Californian and Oregonian Zoogeographic Provinces 3371, Zootaxa 3371, pp. 1-307 : 121

Family Glyphocrangonidae Smith, 1884

Like the crangonids, the species of the family Glyphocrangonidae have subchelate first pereopods. Their common name, armored shrimps, reflects their firm, sculptured exoskeleton. The rostrum is well developed, dorsoventrally depressed and somewhat concave. The lateral margin of the rostrum bears teeth. The carapace bears grooves, ridges, spines and tubercles. The abdominal somites bear nodules and ventral teeth. The eyes of local species are large and pigmented.

Faxon (1893, 1895, 1896) described eastern Pacific armored shrimps. Holthuis (1971) provided a set of descriptive terms for the various features of the exoskeleton. The descriptions and key in this section use Holthuis' terms.

Little is known of the natural history of armored shrimps. Glyphocrangon spinicauda A. Milne-Edwards, 1881 was observed from a submarine off Florida. It spent much of the time with the rostrum embedded in the seabed and the body flexed ( Anderson & Bullis 1970). Glyphocrangon sculpta ( Smith, 1882) of the Atlantic was photographed by a time-lapse camera. It crawled on the bottom at a rate of about 100 cm /hr. Stomach contents of this species included foraminiferans, small bivalve mollusks and small crustaceans ( Lampitt & Burnham 1983). Rice (1981) reported that species of Glyphocrangon eat small infaunal mollusks. He speculated that the ball and socket joints of the last three abdominal somites and telson could serve as a locking mechanism that would protect the abdomen from attack by predators. Species of Glyphocrangon can be parasitized by isopods ( Munidion sp. )