It is a monotypic genus, containing a single species, the goldspot seabream (Gnathodentex aureolineatus), also known as the striped large-eye bream.

Gnathodentex was first proposed as a monospecific genus in 1873 by the Dutch physician, herpetologist and ichthyologist Pieter Bleeker, with Sparus auereolineatus as its only species.

[3] Sparus auereolineatus had originally been described by the French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1802 based on a description in a manuscript by Philibert Commerson, no type locality was given and the holotype could not be located in the National Museum of Natural History, France by Bauchot and Daget in 1972.

The specific name aureolineatus means "gold-lined" and is a reference to the 4 or 5 brownish-orange stripes on the otherwise silvery whitish lower body.

[2] Gnathodentex aureolineatus is present in tropical and subtropical waters of the Indo-Pacific area from the eastern coast of Africa to the Pacific Ocean's islands, Hawaii excluded.