It inhabits shallow pools, including the highest body of water ever to have yielded a crustacean, at an altitude of 5,930 m (19,460 ft) in the Andes.

[2] Boeckella palustris has a Páramo–Punan distribution,[3] being found in southern Peru, and close to the border between Bolivia and Chile.

[2] Boeckella palustris shares the record for the crustacean living at the highest altitude with the fairy shrimp Branchinecta brushi; both were found on December 13, 1988 in the same pool at an altitude of 5,930 metres (19,460 ft) near the summit of the stratovolcano Cerro Paniri (22°05′S 68°15′W / 22.08°S 68.25°W / -22.08; -68.25) in the Antofagasta Region of Chile.

[4] The only higher record, which claimed that Branchinecta paludosa occurred at 97,000 feet (30,000 m) is "almost certainly a typographical error".

[5] The genus Pseudoboeckella was subsumed into Boeckella in 1992 by Ian A. E. Bayly of Monash University, Australia, as no reliable character could be found to distinguish the two.