Rafinesque, 1815: 16; Gressitt, 1946: 84; Monrós, 1949: 617; 1950: 412–413; 1952: 540, 547–549; Chûjô, 1956: 54; Gressitt & Kimoto, 1961: 176–189; Kimoto and Gressitt, 1981: 387; Chamorro-Lacayo & Konstantinov, 2009: 71 (difference in generic type species).
Type species: Bruchus gibbosus Fabricius, 1777 (= Chlamys tuberosa Knock).
Syn.: Chlamys Knoch, 1801: 122; (nec Röding IN Bolten, 1798); Jacoby, 1908: 271 (type species); Chen, 1940: 192; Gressitt, 1942: 354. Type species: Bruchus gibbosus Fabricius, designed by Jacoby, 1908.
Myochlamys Ihering, 1905: 642 (nec Fairmaire, 1876; replacement name for Chlamys Knoch, 1801).
Arthrochlamys Ihering, 1907: 251 (replacement name for Myochlamys Ihering, 1905).
Boloschesis Jacobson, 1924: 239 (name for Chlamys Knoch, 1801).
Diagnosis. Body subpentagonal or subcylindrical, mostly black or dark, some red to yellow. Body surface with tubercles and ridges, very similar to feces of moth larva (Lepidoptera). Head embed on prothorax and head surface flat; eyes large, inner margin deeply concaved; frons and clypeus without distinct boarder; antennae concealed into the cavity between prosternum and propleuron, short and narrow, composed of 11 segments: scape club like, narrowed at base, pedicel usually globular or triangular, 3rd and 4th segment usually short and slender, apical six to eight segments serrated. Pronotum with disc strongly raised, usually with some ridges and tubercles at the surface; posterior declivity extending back, with a triangular notch in the middle, which conjunct with the triangular projection of base of scutellum. Prosternum broad anteriorly, prosternal process usually narrowly extended. Scutellum rectangular with posterior lateral angle produced. Elytra slightly wider or as wide as pronotum, narrower on apex, humeri swelled and arched; usually with four rows of tubercles and/or ridges with their names, from suture to outside respectively: sutural row, median row, humeral row, lateral row; a large longitudinal depression below humeri; sutural margin of each elytron with a row of teeth, which is complement for each other when elytra closed. Pygidium exposed, usually with one to three longitudinal carina, sometimes with a median transverse carina. Legs short and flat, fits into the groove on bottom of thorax and abdomen.
This genus is closely related to the genus Exema Lacordaire, 1848 and Neochlamisus Karren, 1972, but can be distinguished by the following characteristics: body mostly subpentagonal, usually not metallic, canthus of eyes usually without yellow spots, prosternum posteriorly much narrower than anterior margin, elytra without velvety spots, males without spines or spinulae on first ventrite, male ejaculatory guide symmetrical, without sheath, apex of spermathecal duct as wide as rest of pump. The genus Exema Lacordaire, 1848 was treated as synonym of the genus Chlamisus Rafinesque, 1815 by most taxonomists (see references given for the genus), but was considered as valid by Seeno & Wilcox (1982) and Chamorro-Lacayo & Konstantinov (2009).