Palaemonid

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Any of various small decapod crustaceans of the family Palaemonidae, often found in freshwater or brackish habitats
2. A shrimp belonging to the family Palaemonidae, which includes many river and grass shrimps
3. A member of the crustacean family Palaemonidae, a group of prawn-like decapods that live in streams, estuaries and seas

Etymology: Palaemon was a sea deity in Greek myth. He began as Melicertes, son of the mortal Ino, who leapt into the sea with the child to escape her husband Athamas. The two were transformed into marine gods, and Palaemon became a protector of sailors, honored at the Isthmian games near Corinth. Naturalists later gave the name to a genus of shrimp, probably because of their graceful, swimming bodies, and the family containing that genus took its name from the genus. A palaemonid is any member of that family, the Palaemonidae, which is made up of shrimp mainly found in marine, brackish and freshwater habitats. The ending "-id" comes from the Greek "-ides", meaning "son of" or "descendant of", and it became the standard suffix for animal family names in scientific Latin. Taken together, the word means something like "a shrimp of the Palaemon line."