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Records of the Australian Museum (2012) Vol. 64 
Variation in the maxilla 1 palp robust setae, which 
can vary between 4 and 6, appears to be stable within 
the species studied here, and may be useful in future 
phylogenetic studies. Another interesting phenomenon 
among species of podocerids is the size relation of pereopod 
5-7, which can be either increasing or decreasing in length 
from pereopods 5 to 7, or have all pereopods subequal in 
length. This character is usually stable within families for 
the Amphipoda (Lowry, pers. comm.). Though extremely 
useful and easily observed, pereopod characters are not 
always assessable due to the fragile nature of the legs 
in podocerids, which most often break at death. This 
variation in pereopods 5-7 length, along with the flexion 
in the pereonites (particularly the spacing of the pereonite 
2), relates to feeding strategy, as described by Barnard et 
al. t 1988, where individuals grasp the substrate with the 
pereopods and rear the front of the body into oncoming 
current to filter feed. 
Materials and methods 
Material examined for this study was an assessment of 
amphipod holdings predominantly from shallow-water 
(0-50 m) samples in various collections of the Australian 
Museum (AM), Museums Victoria (NMV), and South 
Australian Museum (SAMA). Algae from Batemans Bay 
2003 collections were identified by Dr A. Millar, Botanic 
Gardens, Sydney. Material was dissected in 80% ethanol. 
Permanent slides were made using Aquatex™ mounting 
media. Specimens were prepared for electron microscopy 
as follows: preserving solution was sequentially advance 
in 5% increments from 80% to 100% ethanol; critical point 
dried; mounted individually on pins; gold sputter coated 
and images where captured using on a Zeiss EVO LS15 
Scanning Electron Microscope with Robinson Backscatter 
Detector (SEM). Abbreviations for parts are as follows: 
A —antenna; F —accessory flagellum; G —gnathopod; LL — 
lower lip; Md —mandible; Mxl —maxilla 1; P —pereopod; 
p —palp; T —telson; U —uropod and Ur —urosome. A map 
of Australia (Fig. 1) shows locations of places mentioned 
in the text. Descriptions were generated from a DELTA 
database of the Podoceridae containing all species in the 
genera Cyrtophium, Leipsuropus, Laetmatophilus and Indo- 
Pacific species of Podocerus. 
90°E 100°E 110 E 120 : 'E 130°E 140°E 150°E 160 : 'E 170E 
