The zoogeography of Chinese Palaemonoidea fauna

In t he present paper , we discuss t he dist ribution and faunal characteristics of Palaemonoid Decapods in China.Three families , Anchistioididae , Gnat hop hyllidae , and Palaemonidae , of t he Su2 perfamily Palaemonoidea have been found in Chinese marine and f resh waters.In t he family Anchis2 tioididae , a rare marine group comprising only 1 genus and 4 species , only 1 species was found , f rom t he Nansha Islands in t he sout hern Sout h China Sea.Of t he small family Gnat hop hyllidae , which in2 cludes 4 genera and 12 species , 3 common Indo2West Pacific species were recorded f rom t he Xisha Is2 lands in t he nort hwestern Sout h China Sea.Species of t hese two families are t ropical (in nat ure) .The Palaemonidae , t he largest and a very common family of Palaemonoidea , is widely dist ributed in world oceans and f reshwater habitat s and consist s of 2 subfamilies and 102 genera.This family is very rich in species in Chinese waters.The Subfamily Palaemoninae is a f ree living group inhabiting mainly f resh2 water or shallow marine and brackish water habitat s.A total of 61 species belonging to 9 genera were reported f rom China , mostly in sout hern part s.The fauna belongs to t he t ropical and subt ropical Indo2 Ξ