Family Oplophoridae Dana, 1852

Remarks. For a long time, the oplophorid shrimps were considered to consist of a single pelagic family, Oplophoridae s.l., including 10 genera and about 70 species (Chace, 1986). Recently, the Oplophoridae has been the subject of several molecular studies seeking to better understand the phylogeny of the family. Bracken-Grissom, et.al. (2009) found very little support for a monophyletic Oplophoridae and split the family into the families Acanthephyridae Spence Bate (1888), containing seven genera: Acanthephyra A. Milne-Edwards, 1881, Ephyrina Smith, 1885, Heterogenys Chace, 1886, Hymenodora, G. O. Sars, 1877, Kemphyra Chace, 1986, Meningodora Smith, 1882, and Notostomus A. Milne-Edwards, 1881; the family Oplophoridae Dana, 1852, was restricted to three genera: Janicella Chace, 1986, Oplophorus H. Milne Edwards, 1837, and Systellaspis, Spence Bate, 1888 . A more recent molecular study (Wong et al. 2015) restored the Oplophoridae to monophyly. Further, Lunina et al. (2019) provided molecular evidence to again consider Oplophoridae as consisting of Oplophoridae and Acanthephyridae . Alves-Júnior et al. (2019) use both Acanthephyridae and Oplophoridae in their paper on the taxonomy of deep-sea shrimps from Brazilian waters of the southwestern Atlantic. In light of these molecular ambiguities, I believe it to be conservative here to use, for the time being, Oplophoridae . as the family to which the genus Hymenodora belongs.