Slipper lobsters are a family (Scyllaridae) of about 90 species of achelate crustaceans, in the Decapoda clade Reptantia, found in all warm oceans and seas.

The second antennae are the slipper lobsters' most conspicuous feature, as they are expanded and flattened into large plates that extend horizontally forward from the animal's head.

The Mediterranean species Scyllarus pygmaeus is the smallest, growing to a maximum total length of 55 millimetres (2.2 in), and rarely more than 40 mm (1.6 in).

[6] Slipper lobsters eat a variety of molluscs, including limpets, mussels and oysters,[7] as well as crustaceans, polychaetes and echinoderms.

They lack the giant neurones which allow other decapod crustaceans to perform tailflips, and must rely on other means to escape predator attack, such as burial in a substrate and reliance on the heavily armoured exoskeleton.

[7] After hatching out of their eggs, young slipper lobsters pass through around ten instars as phyllosoma larvae — leaf-like, planktonic zoeae.

One significant earlier fossil is Cancrinos claviger, which was described from Upper Jurassic sediments at least 142 million years ago, and may represent either an ancestor of modern slipper lobsters,[25] or the sister group to the family Scyllaridae sensu stricto.