Luciferidae
Family of crustaceans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Luciferidae is a family of prawns belonging to the superfamily Sergestoidea. Members of this family are small and are characterised by bioluminescence. Another characteristic of this family is the loss or reduction of some appendages.
| Luciferidae | |
|---|---|
| |
| Belzebub hanseni | |
 | |
| Lucifer typus | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Decapoda |
| Suborder: | Dendrobranchiata |
| Superfamily: | Sergestoidea |
| Family: | Luciferidae De Haan, 1849 |
| Genera | |
|
See text | |
Behavior
They are predators of tiny planktonic crustaceans. They capture their prey by using their third pereiopod which is thick with the limb covered in curved spines.
Taxonomy
This family was thought to be a monotypic taxon but a 2016 cladistic analysis recognized a second genus apart from Lucifer, named Belzebub. A list of genera and the species they contain can be found below.[1][2]
Lucifer
- Lucifer orientalis (Hansen, 1919)
- Lucifer typus (H. Milne-Edwards, 1837)
Belzebub
- Belzebub chacei (Bowman, 1967)
- Belzebub faxoni (Borradaile, 1915)
- Belzebub hanseni (Nobili, 1905)
- Belzebub intermedius (Hansen, 1919)
- Belzebub penicillifer (Hansen, 1919)
