In older classifications, Reptantia was one of the two sub-orders of Decapoda alongside Natantia, with Reptantia containing the walking forms, and Natantia containing the swimming forms (prawns, shrimp and boxer shrimp).

However, in 1963 Martin Burkenroad found Natantia to be paraphyletic and invalid, and instead split Decapoda into the two sub-orders of Dendrobranchiata (prawns) and Pleocyemata.

[1] Reptantia remains a valid monophyletic grouping, but is now no longer ranked as a sub-order.

[2] The name Reptantia means "those that walk", and contains those decapods whose primary mode of locomotion is to walk along a surface using the pereiopods rather than swimming through the water with the pleopods.

The cladogram below shows Reptantia under the sub-order Pleocyemata within the larger order Decapoda, from analysis by Wolfe et al., 2019.