When first discovered, the clade was named Cetiocaridae after a speculative evolution artwork, Bearded Ceticaris by John Meszaros, that depicted a hypothetical filter-feeding radiodont at a time before any were known to exist.

However, in this family the auxiliary spines are fine and densely-arranged, which are modified for use in filter feeding like modern basking sharks and mysticete whales.

In the 2013 speculative paleoart book All Your Yesterdays, paleoartist John Meszaros depicted a hypothetical filter-feeding anomalocaridid he named "Ceticaris".

[4] Cetiocaridae was originally defined phylogenetically as all species more closely related to Tamisiocaris borealis than to Anomalocaris canadensis, Amplectobelua symbrachiata, or Hurdia victoria.

[1] Tamisocaridid fossils have been found in the Emu Bay Shale of Australia, Sirius Passet lagerstätte of Greenland, and Kinzers Formation of the United States.