Formerly, they were treated as a subclass in the paraphyletic "Adenophorea" assemblage, which has been mostly abandoned by modern authors.

It is also suspected that the Chromadorea may not be monophyletic as delimited here; at least the Monhysterida seem to be a distinct and far more ancient lineage than the rest.

Members of this class' bodies usually have annules, their amphids elaborate and spiral, and they all have three esophageal glands.

[1] These molecular markers are found in essential proteins such as tRNA (guanine-N(1))-methyltransferase and can serve as a reliable molecular method of distinguishing the Chromadorea from other classes within the phylum Nematoda.

This Chromadorea nematode (or roundworm-) related article is a stub.