The genus contains the type and only species Scleromochlus taylori, named by Arthur Smith Woodward in 1907.

The holotype was discovered around 1900 and is listed as specimen BMNH R3556, a partial skeleton preserved as an impression in sandstone, with portions of the skull and tail missing.

[6] A lightly built cursorial animal, its phylogenetic position has been debated; as different analyses have found it to be either the basal-most ornithodiran, the sister-taxon to Pterosauria, or a basal member of Avemetatarsalia that lies outside of Ornithodira.

[5] However, in 2022, Foffa and colleagues reconstructed a complete skeleton using microcomputed tomographic scans of the seven specimens found to date.

Previous alternative classifications were demonstrated to have been based on misinterpretations of incomplete or ambiguous anatomical features found in the fossil record.