It was first thought to be a member of the fungi-like thraustochytrids, however, this was later disproven due to Corallochytriums lack of cilia and sagenogenetosome.

C. limacisporum was first discovered and named in 1987 in coral reef lagoons of three Lakshadweep islands in the Arabian sea; Agatti, Kavaratti and Bangaram (Raghu-kumar, 1987).

Cavalier-Smith assigned a new order and class for Corallochytrium under the phylum Choanozoa: Corallochytrida and Corallochytrea respectively (Cavelier-Smith 1995).

Recently, Torruella et al. (2015) revealed that Corallochytrium has a sister group: Ichthyosporea and clusters within Teretosporea, an early branching lineage of unicellular organisms that are thought to be one of the closest relatives to animals (Marshall, 2014) Corallochytrium has become an important species in unraveling the diversification of animals from fungi and opisthokont evolution.

Corallochytrium and Ichthyosporea are thought to be the earliest branches of the holozoans (animals and all their ancestors, excluding fungi) (Torruella et al. 2015).

Corallochytrium is a small (around 5–20μm in diameter), round, non-photosynthetic choanoflagellate (Torruella et al. 2015, Cavalier-Smith & Allsopp, 1996).