[2] Cimolestans had a wide variety of body shapes, dentition and lifestyles, though the majority of them were small to medium-sized general mammals that bore superficial resemblances to rodents, lagomorphs, mustelids, and marsupials.

However, recent studies have revealed that cimolestans are more likely to be basal, non-placental eutherians, with no living descendants.

[3][4] Some have also placed the enigmatic family Ptolemaiidae within Cimolesta, also due to similarities between dental and skull anatomies with those of Pantolesta.

However, more thorough studies suggest that the ptolemaiids were more probably afrotheres related to aardvarks, tenrecs and golden moles.

[5] [6] If one ignores the ptolemaiids as afrotherians, then the last, unequivocal cimolestids, the pantolestids Gobiopithecus and Kiinkerishella, died out during the Late Eocene or early Oligocene.