The bighead spurdog has only been recorded from the waters south of New Caledonia, and from seamounts on the Norfolk Ridge in the northern Tasman Sea.
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The species was described by Peter Last, Bernard Séret, and John Pogonoski in a 2007 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) publication.
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The first specimens of the bighead spurdog were collected during South Pacific biodiversity surveys conducted by the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD).