Bellator was first described as a genus in 1896 by the American ichthyologists David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann, withPrionotus militaris, which had been described earlier in 1896 by George Brown Goode and Tarleton Hoffman Bean from off Cape Catoche in Yucatán, Mexico, designated as its type species and also being its only species.

[1][2] The genus is one of 2 genera classified within the subfamily Prionotinae, the sea robins, in the gurnards family Triglidae.

[3] Eight species in this genus are recognized:[4] Bellator sea robina are characterised by a large, rather square-shaped bony head which bears a number of ridges and spines and has a thin intraorbital space.

[5] The smallest species in the genus is B. ribeiroi which has a maximum published total length of 9.9 cm (3.9 in) and the largest is B. egretta with a maximum published total length of 20 cm (7.9 in).

[4] Bellator sea robins are found in the tropical and temperate waters of the Western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific Oceans off both North and South America.