They can be differentiated from the Dendrobranchiata prawns by their lack of branching gills, and by the fact that they brood their eggs instead of directly releasing them into the water.

[1] Stenopodidea belongs to the order Decapoda, and is most closely related to the Caridea and Procarididea infraorders of shrimp.

The cladogram below shows Stenopodidea's relationships to other relatives within Decapoda, from analysis by Wolfe et al., 2019.

[5] Until D. pennsylvaniensis was discovered, the oldest known member of the group was Jilinicaris chinensis from the Late Cretaceous.

[6] The cladogram below shows Stenopodidea's internal relationships:[2] Stenopodidae Macromaxillocarididae Spongicolidae