Minous was first described as a genus by the French zoologist Georges Cuvier, in 1876 Pieter Bleeker designated Minous monodactylus, which had originally been described as Scorpaena monodactyla by Bloch and Schneider in 1801, as its type species.

[2] The genus name, Minous, is a latinisation of woorah minooh, the name that in 1803 the herpetologist Patrick Russell reported was used for the type species in Vizagapatam on the Coromandel Coast in India.

[5] There are currently 15 recognized species in this genus:[4] Minous stingishes are small, most are less than 15 cm (5.9 in) in total length with mainly scaleless bodies.

[3] Minous stingfishes are found in the Indo-Pacific region from the Red Sea[9] east into the Western pacific, north to Japan and south to Australia.

[8] These fishes are found on mud and sand bottoms where they use the detached lower pectoral fin rays to walk over the substrate.