The family Polychelidae contains thirty-eight extant species of blind, benthic lobster-like crustaceans.

The first pair of periopods are greatly elongated, but often become broken off while specimens are being brought to the surface.

[3] Although apparently widespread, and at least locally common, they were first discovered only in the late nineteenth century when they were dredged up by the Challenger expedition from a depth supposed to be "barren, if not of all life, certainly of animals so high in the scale of existence" (Charles Spence Bate).

Their kinship with the fossil group Eryonoidea, including well-known genera such as Eryon, was immediately recognised.

A single fossil species is known, Antarcticheles antarcticus, which was found in Jurassic sediments on James Ross Island, close to the Prince Gustav Channel.