A large species growing to a recorded length of 1 m, the longrakered trevally is distinguished by is protruding lower jaw, elongated gill rakers and lack of villiform teeth on its tongue.

The longrakered trevally is one of two species in the genus Ulua, one of around thirty genera in the jack and horse mackerel family Carangidae, which in turn is part of the order Carangiformes.

[3] The longrakered trevally was first scientifically described by the famed French naturalist Georges Cuvier in his 1833 volume Histoire Naturelle des Poissons.

Cuvier based his description off the designated holotype specimen collected from the Red Sea near the port city of Massawa in Eritrea.

Cuvier named the species Caranx mentalis, with the specific epithet derived from the Latin word for "chin".

[4] In 1908 the American ichthyologists David Starr Jordan and John Snyder described Ulua richardsoni and in the process erected a new genus for the species.

A dark diffuse blotch is present on the upper operculum in large individuals, but is faint or absent in smaller fish.

[17] The fine gill rakers on the longrakered trevally have also led to some authors suggesting the possibility of filter feeding on plankton.

[10] For the most part it is taken as bycatch, and has been recorded in Indian finfish catches[19] as well as Australian and Persian Gulf shrimp and prawn trawl fisheries.

[22] Remains of the species have been found in archeological sites in the UAE, suggesting the longrakered trevally has been exploited throughout prehistory in this region.