Paratypothoracisini is a clade

Clade

A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...

 of aetosaur

Aetosaur

Aetosaurs are an extinct order of heavily armoured, medium- to large-sized Late Triassic herbivorous archosaurs. They have small heads, upturned snouts, erect limbs, and a body covered by plate-like scutes. All aetosaurs belong to the family Stagonolepididae...

s within the subfamily Aetosaurinae

Aetosaurinae

Aetosaurinae is one of the two subfamilies of aetosaurs, the other being Desmatosuchinae. It is a stem-based taxon defined as all aetosaurs more closely related to Aetosaurus than to the last common ancestor of Aetosaurus and Desmatosuchus. The only synapomorphy that diagnoses the clade...

. It is a node-based taxon that includes Heliocanthus

Heliocanthus

Heliocanthus is the name of a problematic genus of aetosaur that has undergone many taxonomic revisions in recent years, and may prove to be synonymous with Rioarribasuchus...

, Paratypothorax

Paratypothorax

Paratypothorax is an extinct genus of aetosaur. It was first named in 1985 from specimens collected from the Lower Stubensandstein in Germany and was also noted to be present in the Chinle Group of the southwestern United States in both the Dockum and Chinle Formations, which are latest Carnian and...

, Tecovasuchus

Tecovasuchus

Tecovasuchus is an extinct genus of aetosaur. It is known primarily from osteoderms found from the Tecovas Formation in Texas, which is Late Triassic in age, dating back to the upper Carnian. Material is also known from several other localities of the Chinle Group in New Mexico and Arizona...

, and all descendants of their most recent common ancestor. All synapomorphies that diagnose the clade can be found in the osteoderm

Osteoderm

Osteoderms are bony deposits forming scales, plates or other structures in the dermal layers of the skin. Osteoderms are found in many groups of extant and extinct reptiles, including lizards, various groups of dinosaurs , crocodilians, phytosaurs, aetosaurs, placodonts, and hupehsuchians...

s. These include dorsal eminences of the paramedian plates that never or almost never contact the posterior margins of the plates and dorsoventrally flattened "horns" formed from the lateral spikes of the cervical and anterior dorsal regions.