Jeannel (1940) considered Callisthenes, Microcallisthenes and Chrysostigma, as the result of a unique evolutionary line that, in his hypothesis, dates back to Asian Caminara and then spreaded to North America via the Arctic lands in the tertiary period. All the species pertaining to this evolutionary line should be identified by the glabrous elongated spots they have on the outer face of the articles of antennas from the fifth segment onwards and by the absence of brush on the middle tibiae of the males. All of them have setae on metatrochanter and lack the setae at the base of the pronotum. Again according Jeannel, Callisthenes differs because of a short mentum without setae.
Callisthenes includes mainly Asiatic species, that, presumably, originated in Central Asia.
Jeannel (1940) had maintained separate (in terms of gender) Teratexis fabulous for the hyper-development of head and pronotum, the elytra with deep depressions, the middle and hind tibiae curved in the males, and Callisphaena reticulatus (in terms of subgenus) for the presence of wings, which are absent in all other species of the group, and because of the shape of the pronotum.
Kryzhanovskij (1962), as Gidaspov (1959), has maintained Callisthenes as a distinct genus, that (in addition to Microcallisthenes and Callisthenia) includes the sub-genres: Callisphaena, Callisthenes e Teratexis. This approach was also followed by Obydov (2002), author of a recent and very well documented monograph.
However the characteristics for distinguishing more subgenera beside Callisthenes do not appear to be conclusive, as will be discussed when dealing with the different species. Moreover we have not considered appropriate, in relationship to our limited aims, to accept all species and subspecies established by Obydov on the basis of the separation of habitats and morphological differences. By accepting this approach, to allow the reading of the phylogenetic relationships, it would be then necessary to distinguish between one or other subspecies hierarchically subordinated (see eg in Carabus, the concept of subspecies as an aggregate of "nationes" of Breuning or the use of "strong" or "weak" subspecies made by Deuve) or to establish groups of closely related species, as needs to do Obydov. We therefore preferred, as regards the nomenclature, to follow the most concise approach of Jeannel with some adjustments.