[1] It is a generally rather common species, known from a large quantity of isolated teeth, exhibiting a high degree of variability.

It is smaller than A. denisoni by approximately 80%, and it differs from it, and most North American triconodontids, by lacking a lingual cingulid on the lower molars and premolars.

[2][4] Always identified as a "triconodont" mammal,[1] recent studies have recovered it as a triconodontid eutriconodont, as most closely related to Alticonodon and Corviconodon (these are in turn each other's sister taxa).

[5][6] Because of its abundance on lake and estuary deposits and particular association with fish-rich areas, it has been suggested that Astroconodon was an aquatic piscivore, an assertion reinforced by a perceived functional similarity between its molars and those of cetaceans and pinnipeds.

[3] Other researchers like Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska, however, were not convinced, noting that eutriconodont dentition cannot be easily compared to placental dentation, and that they generally have a shearing function as opposed to the non-occluding, grasping teeth of marine mammals.