The sailfin snapper was first formally described in 1874 by the German-born British ichthyologist Albert Günther as Symphorus spilurus with the type locality given as Palau.

[3] The Australian marine scientist Ian Stafford Ross Munro placed it in the monotypic genus Symphorichthys in 1967.

[5] The sailfin snapper has a body which is deep and laterally compressed with a rounded dorsal profile of the head, an angular forehead and a steeply sloped snout.

There is a large pale-margined black spot on the upper caudal peduncle, an orange bar over the eye and another to the rear of the head.

The juveniles have an overall pale greyish colour broken by a wide white-bordered black stripe running along the middle of the flanks from the snout to the rear margin of the tail.

In the Pacific Ocean it is found east as far as Tonga and Fiji, north to the Ryukyu Islands and south to New Caledonia and the Great Barrier Reef.

[7] The sailfin snapper is typically encountered singly but adults aggregate to spawn along the outer edges of reefs.