Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 25, 2026

Gammarus

Gammarus is an amphipod crustacean genus in the family Gammaridae. It contains more than 200 described species, making it one of the most species-rich genera of crustaceans. Different species have different optimal conditions, particularly in terms of salinity, and different tolerances; Gammarus pulex, for instance, is a purely freshwater species, while Gammarus locusta is estuarine, only living where the salinity is greater than 25‰.

Last revised
Jun 25, 2026
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≈ 7 min
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Gammarus
Gammarus pulex
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Clade: Pancrustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Amphipoda
Family: Gammaridae
Genus: Gammarus
Fabricius, 1775
Type species
Gammarus pulex
Synonyms
  • Rivulogammarus
  • Sinogammarus

Gammarus is an amphipod crustacean genus in the family Gammaridae. It contains more than 200 described species, making it one of the most species-rich genera of crustaceans.2 Different species have different optimal conditions, particularly in terms of salinity, and different tolerances; Gammarus pulex, for instance, is a purely freshwater species, while Gammarus locusta is estuarine, only living where the salinity is greater than 25‰.3

Species of Gammarus are the typical "scuds" of North America and range widely throughout the Holarctic. A considerable number are also found southwards into the Northern Hemisphere tropics, particularly in Southeast Asia.4

Species

The following species are included:5 Four new species were found in 2018 on the Tibetan Plateau.6 Four more new species were described from the Chihuahuan Desert in 2021.7

References

References

  1. Jan Hendrik Stock (1969). "Rivulogammarus, an amphipod name that must be rejected". Crustaceana. 17 (1): 106–107. Bibcode:1969Crust..17..106S. doi:10.1163/156854069X00105.
  2. F. O. Costa; C. M. Henzler; D. H. Lunt; N. M. Whiteley; J. Rock (2009). "Probing marine Gammarus (Amphipoda) taxonomy with DNA barcodes" (PDF). Systematics and Biodiversity. 7 (4): 365–379. Bibcode:2009SyBio...7..365C. doi:10.1017/S1477200009990120. S2CID 83482755.
  3. C. Barry Cox; Peter D. Moore (2010). "Patterns of distribution". Biogeography: An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach (8th ed.). John Wiley and Sons. pp. 37–89. ISBN 978-0-470-63794-4.
  4. Zhonge Hou; Jinzhong Fu; Shuqiang Li (2009). "A molecular phylogeny of the genus Gammarus (Crustacea: Amphipoda) based on mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 45 (2): 596–611. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2007.06.006. PMID 17686635.
  5. Mark Costello; Denise Bellan-Santini (2010). "Gammarus Fabricius, 1775". World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved August 28, 2010.
  6. Hou, Zhonge; Li, Shuqiang (2018). "Four new Gammarus species from Tibetan Plateau with a key to Tibetan freshwater gammarids (Crustacea, Amphipoda, Gammaridae)". ZooKeys (747): 1–40. Bibcode:2018ZooK..747....1H. doi:10.3897/zookeys.747.21999. PMC 5904427. PMID 29674901. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  7. Ashley D. Walters; Andrew G. Cannizzaro; Daniel A. Trujillo; David J. Berg (2021). "Addressing the Linnean shortfall in a cryptic species complex". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 192 (2): 277–305. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa099.
  8. Maryam Hekmatara; Alireza Sari; Mohammad-Hadi Heidary Baladehi (2011). "Two new Gammarus species (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Gammaridae) from Zagros Mountains, Iran" (PDF excerpt). Zootaxa. 2894: 39–57. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2894.1.3.
  9. Özbek, Murat; Aydin, Gökhan (2023-01-01). "A new amphipod from the depths of the Morca Sinkhole (Anamur, Türkiye): Gammarus morcae n. sp. (Amphipoda: Gammaridae), with notes on cavernicolous amphipods of Türkiye". Turkish Journal of Zoology. 47 (2). The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Tubitak-Ulakbim) - Digital Commons Journals: 81–93. doi:10.55730/1300-0179.3118. ISSN 1300-0179.