Pylochelidae
| Pylochelidae Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
| Pylocheles miersii | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Decapoda |
| Suborder: | Pleocyemata |
| Infraorder: | Anomura |
| Superfamily: | Paguroidea |
| Family: | Pylochelidae Bate, 1888 |
| Type genus | |
| Pylocheles A. Milne-Edwards, 1880 | |
| Synonyms | |
|
Pomatochelidae T. R. R. Stebbing, 1914 | |
The Pylochelidae are a family of hermit crabs. Its members are commonly called the 'symmetrical hermit crabs'. They live in all the world's oceans, except the Arctic and the Antarctic, at depths of 2,000 m (6,600 ft). Due to their cryptic nature and relative scarcity, only around 60 specimens had been collected before 1987, when a monograph was published detailing a further 400.