Like early true conodonts, paraconodont elements were phosphatic fossils which generally had a horn- or tooth-like shape, and some were serrated with multiple cusps.

As a result, the tip of the 'tooth' remains fully exposed and unmodified through its entire lifetime, while the base of the 'tooth' eventually expands into a rimmed cavity.

[6] During the 1970s and early 1980s, paraconodonts were frequently associated with an even more simplistic group of conodont-like Cambrian fossils, the protoconodonts (taxa such as Amphigeisina, Gapparodus, Hertzina, and Protohertzina).

[5][3][7] Both paraconodonts and protoconodonts were grouped together within the order Paraconodontida in the 1981 Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology volume on conodonts (Part W revised, supplement 2).

[3] Later research found little support for this association, instead arguing that protoconodonts were an unrelated group of invertebrates closer to modern chaetognaths (arrow worms).