This species is found in the Western Pacific Ocean in East Asia.

Dentex abei was first formally described in 2007 by Yukio Iwatsuki, Masato Akazaki and Nobuhiko Taniguchi with its type locality given as Okinawa Island in the Ryukyu Islands of southern Japan.

[3] The genus Dentex is placed in the family Sparidae within the order Spariformes by the 5th edition of Fishes of the World.

[4] Dentex abei honours Tokiharu Abe, an ichthyologist at the Zoological Institute of Tokyo University, a researcher on Japanese fishes and who knew of the uniqueness of this species.

It has been recorded at depths between 50 and 150 m (160 and 490 ft) in deep water reefs and banks.