Xll 



It has become a tradition to preface the systematic part of the keys 

 published by the Zoological Institute, Academy of Sciences, USSR with 

 a brief outline of the morphology, ecology, phylogeny, and biogeography 

 of the group. However, in the keys to gammarid amphipods published 

 under the same series (Gur'yanova, 1951, 1962), excellent reviews have 

 been included on the phylogeny of the entire order Amphipoda and a 

 detailed account of their morphology. This, to a great extent, simplified 

 our task and enabled us to touch only very briefly upon the problems of 

 phylogeny and morphology. 



The various families of Hyperiidea exhibit a wide range of char- 

 acteristic ecological features. It is advisable to examine these features 

 while describing the respective families, without including a section on 

 ecology in the general part. 



In writing the present volume, the material was distributed among the 

 authors as follows. The general part, as also the families Archaeoscinidae, 

 Lanceolidae, Chuneolidae, Microphasmidae, Parascinidae, Mimonecti- 

 dae, Scinidae, and Hyperiidae were handled by M.E. Vinogradov. He 

 also served as general editor of the book. A.F. Volkov described the fam- 

 ilies Lycaeopsidae, Pronoidae, Anapronoidae, Tryphanidae, Brachyscel- 

 idae, Lycaeidae, Platyscelidae, and Parascelidae. T.N. Semenova wrote 

 up the families Vibiliidae, Cystisomatidae, Paraphronimidae, Diarellidae, 

 Phronimidae, Phrosinidae, and Oxycephalidae. 



We hope our attempt at presenting this key to the world fauna of 

 hyperiideans will be favorably received by hydrobiologists, and that the 

 book proves helpful to them in faunistic and scientific research work. 



It is but natural that in preparing this key to the world fauna of 

 hyperiideans, when some of the species were lacking in our collections 

 and we could judge the structure of their representatives only from pub- 

 lished descriptions — sometimes very brief and superficial — some errors 

 and inaccuracies may have crept in. We shall be extremely grateful to 

 readers for their comments and criticism. 



