Currently, three species are included in this genus, all of which were originally thought to represent monospecific genera of basal ornithischian dinosaurs.

The generic name honors its type locality, Revuelto Creek, Quay County of New Mexico.

Revuelto is derived from Spanish revuelta, "revolution", in reference to the importance of the Late Triassic period for terrestrial vertebrate evolution.

The specific name honours the director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History Jonathan F. Callender.

Andrew B. Heckert (2002) redescribed the genus in detail and named a second species, R. hunti on the basis of teeth described by Hunt and Lucas (1994).

He referred MNA V3690, an isolated tooth assigned by Kaye and Padian (1994) to R. callenderi from the Placerias/Downs quarry near St Johns, Arizona, to Tecovasaurus.

R. callenderi is known to date only from the Revueltian (early-mid Norian, the type locality dates back to the early Norian) of Bull Canyon Formation (Dockum Group, New Mexico) and the Painted Desert of the Petrified Forest Member (Chinle Formation, Arizona).

[7] Other skeletons were discovered from the Painted Desert, including the nearly complete specimen PEFO 34561 which have been fully reconstructed recently.

The Cumnock Formation belongs to the Chathan Group (of the Newark Supergroup), which is recognized as Late Triassic in age.

They noted that Hunt and Lucas (1994) did not provide any differential diagnosis, autapomorphies, or unique combination of characters for Pekinosaurus.

[4] All species of Revueltosaurus were thought to represent monospecific genera of basal ornithischian dinosaurs based on their teeth.

We think we've shown that you can't rely on the dentition to determine what is an early dinosaur, which casts doubt on all the ornithischians from the Triassic of North America".

[1] Avemetatarsalia Ornithosuchidae Gracilisuchus Turfanosuchus Revueltosaurus Aetosaurus Longosuchus Stagonolepis Ticinosuchus Poposauroidea Prestosuchus Saurosuchus Batrachotomus Fasolasuchus Rauisuchus Polonosuchus Postosuchus Crocodylomorpha