These centipedes have a forcipular coxosternite without prominent serrate tooth-plates, featuring at most a few shallow teeth.

These projections taper with their tips pointing forward toward the anterior end of the gizzard.

[6] Phylogenetic studies using molecular data indicate that the three eyeless families Scolopocryptopidae, Cryptopidae, and Plutoniumidae are each monophyletic and together form a clade.

[6] These results imply a single shift from 21 to 23 pairs of legs leading to the last common ancestor of the family Scolopocryptopidae, with kinked sieve projections in the gizzard as an unreversed autapomorphy.

Species in the subfamily Scolopocryptopinae are found in temperate and tropical regions of the Americas, in West Africa, and from East Asia to New Guinea.