[1] Pausanias (2nd century AD), who calls them "Epimeliades", mentions them as one of the three types of nymphs, alongside the Naiads and Dryads.
[2] Other names – Mēlídes (Μηλίδες), Malídes (Μαλίδες), Maliádes (Μαλιάδες), and Hamamēlídes (Ἁμαμηλίδες) – denote nymphs associated with trees, and stem from the word mēléa (μηλέα); given these terms, Otto Jessen [de] states that the term "Epimelides" may have at times also been used to refer to tree nymphs.
[3] Antoninus Liberalis, citing Nicander (2nd century BC), relates that a group of performing Epimelides arrived in the land of the Messapians.
Young local shepherds gathered to see them, leaving behind the animals under their protection, and proclaimed that their dancing abilities were superior to those of the nymphs.
[5] A similar tale appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which a shephard from Apulia mocks the dancing of a group of nymphs, resulting in him being turned into a tree.