Type species. Chiton laevis Montagu, 1803 ( non Pennant, 1777) = Callochiton septemvalvis ( Montagu, 1803), by subsequent designation ( Gray 1847).
Distribution. Mostly tropical and subtropical regions of the Indo-Pacific (including Japan, absent from the northeastern Pacific). In the Atlantic Ocean, it is restricted to the sub-Antarctic and the eastern part further north. The fossil record extends back to the lower Oligocene of New Zealand ( Ashby 1929), the Miocene of Europe ( Bałuk 1984; Dell’Angelo et al. 2016), Argentina ( Urteaga et al. 2011) and Australia (Ashby 1939) and the Pleistocene of Japan ( Itoigawa et al. 1976).