Lycodichthys was first proposed as a monospecific genus in 1911 by the German zoologist Paul Pappenheim [de] when he described L. antarcticus giving its type locality as the Gauss winter station on the coast of Kaiser Wilhelm II Land in Antarctica.

[2][4] The American ichthyologist Hugh Hamilton DeWitt described Rhigophila dearbornii in 1962 but in 1988 this taxon was reviewed by the South African based American ichthyologist M. Eric Anderson and reclassified as the second species in Lycodichthys, making Rhigophila as synonym of Lycodichthys.

[9] The ancestral SAS gene was found to have both sialic acid synthase and rudimentary ice-binding functionalities.

After duplication one of the paralogs began to accumulate mutations that led to the replacement of SAS domains of the gene allowing for further development and optimization of the antifreeze functionality.

Lycodichthys are endemic to the waters of the Southern Ocean off Antarctica, L. antarcticus occurs from the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula east as far as Wilkes Land being found at depths between 195 and 540 m (640 and 1,772 ft) while L. dearborni has only been recorded from the Ross Sea at depths between 550 and 588 m (1,804 and 1,929 ft),[5]