Shinisauria was named in 2008 by Jack Lee Conrad as a stem-based taxon to include all anguimorphs more closely related to Shinisaurus than to Anguis fragilis, Heloderma suspectum or Varanus varius.

[1] Several recent phylogenetic analyses of lizard evolutionary relationships place Shinisauria in a basal position within the clade Platynota, which also includes monitor lizards, helodermatids, and the extinct mosasaurs.

[2] The fossil record of shinisaurians extends back to the Early Cretaceous with Dalinghosaurus, which is from the Aptian aged Yixian Formation of China.

[1] Two other extinct shinisaurians are currently known: Bahndwivici from the Eocene of Wyoming and Merkurosaurus from the Late Oligocene of Germany and the Early Miocene of the Czech Republic.

[3] An indeterminate shinisaurian is known from an isolated tail found in the Eocene aged Messel pit in Germany.