Luciferidae is a family of

prawns Prawn is a common name for small aquatic crustaceans with an exoskeleton and ten legs (members of the order of decapods), some of which are edible. The term ''prawn''Mortenson, Philip B (2010''This is not a weasel: a close look at nature's most ...

. These prawns are small, characterised by

bioluminescence Bioluminescence is the emission of light during a chemiluminescence reaction by living organisms. Bioluminescence occurs in multifarious organisms ranging from marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some Fungus, fungi, microorgani ...

and the loss or reduction of some appendages. They are predators of tiny planktonic crustaceans for which their third

pereiopod The anatomy of a decapod consists of 20 body segments grouped into two main body parts: the cephalothorax and the pleon (abdomen). Each segment – often called a somite – may possess one pair of appendages, although in various groups these m ...

is adapted to capture by having thick, curved spines covering the limb. Until recently, the family was thought to be monotypic, but a 2016 cladistic analysis recognized a second genus apart from ''

Lucifer The most common meaning for Lucifer in English is as a name for the Devil in Christian theology. He appeared in the King James Version of the Bible in Isaiah and before that in the Vulgate (the late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bib ...

'', named '' Belzebub''.

References

Dendrobranchiata Taxa named by Wilhem de Haan Decapod families {{Dendrobranchiata-stub