Like modern skinks, paramacelloidids had rectangular bony plates called osteoderms covering most of their bodies, including their backs, undersides, and tails.

[3] Paramacellodids are distinguished from other lizards by the combination two traits in their dentition, the teeth are labiolingually expanded at their bases, and the tooth apices are lingually concave.

[4] The family was named in 1983 to include two well-known genera, Paramacellodus and Becklesius, from the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous of Europe.

Collectively, paramacellodids and taxa formerly referred to Paramacellodidae may represent a paraphyletic grade of basal scincomorphs closely related to Scincoidea.

In 2002, the newly named genus Atokasaurus from the Early Cretaceous Antlers Formation in Oklahoma was described as a "paramacellodid-grade" scincomorph to reflect this phylogenetic ambiguity.