The deep sea pigfish was first formally described in 1979 by Chris D. Paulin and John M. Moreland with the type locality given as the Campbell Island Rise at 52°56.1'S, 169°55.1'E.

[2] The deepsea pigfish has smooth skin on the body and its anal fin contains no spines.

the profile of the head between the eye and the origin of the dorsal fin is angled at around 45° from the horizontal.

It has a light coloured horizontal stripe along the flanks running from just behind the head and petering out on the caudal peduncle.

[4] This species reaches a maximum fork length of at least 32 cm (13 in),[3] The deepsea pigfish is found in the south western Pacific Ocean in the waters off New Zealand as far north as the Chatham Rise,[3] it has also been recorded in the Great Australian Bight where it may have been previously misidentified as the Southern pigfish which has been claimed to occur there but there are no specimens of that species in Australian museums.