They are solitary planktonic organisms that live as circular or oval, sometimes flattened, cells with a proboscis.

A single cell similar to C.eposianum was found in a cover slip preparation belonging to a 1989 sample obtained from a Pacific Ocean cruise off California, indicating that the genus Commation may not be endemic to the Antarctic region.

[5] Commation was described as a genus by two biologists of the University of Copenhagen, Helge Abildhauge Thomsen and Jacob Larsen.

The order Commatiida was initially assigned to the class Jacobea on the basis of branched tubular mitochondrial cristae.

[3] Phylogenetic analyses in 2013 demonstrated that both Commation and a group of heliozoa known as Actinophryida were related to the raphidophyte algae.