Trachyrincus scabrus has a large head which measures a quarter to a thirds of the length of the body and which has along, pointed snout with a ridge on side which extends posteriorly to the operculum, The mouth lies beneath the snout and the large eye has a diameter of 24-29% of the head length.

[3] The roughsnout grenadier occurs in the eastern Atlantic from the continental slope off western Ireland south to Namibia,[2] including the waters off the Azores[1] and the Cape Verde Islands.

[1] Trachyrincus scabrus is a bathydemersal, non-migratory fish which occurs at depths which range from 400m to 1,700m over soft substrates.

Its main food is pelagic copepods but also takes mysids, shrimps, cephalopods, fish, polychaetes and gastropods.

[4] International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has advised that for the years 2016–2020 there should be no directed fisheries effort for this species and that any bycatch should be counted against the total allowable catch so that any potential misreporting through misidentification is minimised.