Swimming using the three pairs of pleopods is much faster. The speciality of amphipods is the tail-flip, a rapid escape response where the abdomen flicks the animal away after the uropods are dug into the ground. Caprellideans do not have this behaviour but move by stepping along like an inch worm. The vast majority of forms live on the seafloor in all latitudes from both poles to the equator. But there are also planktonic forms in the ocean.
Terrestrial amphipods live only in moist places, on beaches or under leaf litter in forests.
The shiny brown animals that leap about when pot plants are moved in the garden are amphipods.