See text Sympterichthys is a genus of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Brachionichthyidae, the handfishes.

[1] Lophius naevis was preoccuppied by Pierre André Latreille in 1804, so the first available name for this taxon was Chironectes uripennis used by Georges Cuvier in 1817.

[4] Sympterichthys has the following two species classified within it:[5] Sympterichthys handfishes are characterised within the handfish family by having their skin covered in small embedded scales with flat, single pointed or two pointed small spines that grow out from the rear margin of the scale bases.

[7] Another characteristic is the fleshy Illicium (fish anatomy) is thick with small spines at its base and has a length which is 2.1 to 3 times that of the head, with the esca being large, sometimes greater than half the length of the illicium, although it has a similar thickness.

The type species, S. unipennis, is known only from its holotype which was collected from the Australian Sea ("Mer de l'Australie"), thought to be Tasmania.