The family CENTROPAGIDAE Giesbrecht, 1892, is one of the 10 families from the superfamily Diatomoidea. There are a number of genera in this family, many of which live in fresh water. Centropages Kroyer, 1848 lives in marine habitats, Gippslandia Bayly & Arnott, 1969, lives in estuarine environments in southeastern Australia, Gladioferens Henry, 1919 which lives in brackish, nearshore habitats in Australia and New Zealand, Isias Boeck, 1864 lives in nearshore marine habitats and is possibly benthopelagic, Parathalassius Dussart, 1986 lives in brackish water near the mouth of the La Foa River, New Caledonia, and Sinocalanus Burckhardt, 1913 and Limnocalanus Sars, 1863 live in northern hemisphere brackish habitats. The remaining genera are found in freshwater habitats. The genera dealt with here are those with southern hemisphere representatives. Centropagidae are omnivorous, with a strong tendency towards carnivory in some species, based on mouthpart morphology (ltoh 1970; Ohtsuka et al. 1996), gut contents (Harding 1974; Davis & Alatolo 1992; Kleppel 1993), assimilation of plant food (Arashkevich & Timonin 1970), and feeding in the laboratory (Gaudy 1974; Dagg & Grill 1980; Paffenhofer & Knowles 1980). Details of the behaviour of Centropages have been worked out using various photographic techniques (Bundy et al. 1991; Hwang et al. 1993, 1994). Taken from Bradford-Grieve, 1999 (page 131).