The name of this genus is derived from the Greek words kallos (beautiful) and stoma (mouth), referring to the pearly aperture of the shell.

The genus Calliostoma is known in fossil records from the Upper Cretaceous onwards.

[2] The thin, acute, coeloconoid (=approaching conical shape but with concave sides) shell is imperforate or rarely umbilicate.

[8] The North Atlantic topshell Calliostoma occidentale has been reported to feed on coelenterates.

The young emerge as small snails (Lebour, 1936) without passing through a free-living planktonic stage as a veliger larva.