[2] The specific name honours the German naturalist and explorer Wilhelm Peters (1815-1883) who was a curator at the Berlin Zoological Museum and who allowed the author of this species liberal access to the museum's collection.

[3] Oxyurichthys petersii is grey-blue in colour marked with blue spots and streaks on the head and the body.

The first dorsal fin is low with the tips of the spines extending beyond the membrane and these may be longer in males than in females.

[6] It is now caught in large quantities in trawl fisheries in the eastern Basin.

Animals found in samples include formaniferans, harpactoid copepods, tanaidaceans, amphipods, isopods, ostracods, molluscs and echinoderms.