 The placement of the bowmouth guitarfish in the family Rhinidae originates from the group "Rhinae", consisting of "Rhina" and "Rhynchobatus", in Johannes Müller and Jakob Henle's 1841 "Systematische Beschreibung der Plagiostomen".Later authors have also assigned this species to the family Rhinobatidae or Rhynchobatidae.Joseph Nelson, in the 2006 fourth edition of "Fishes of the World", placed this species as the sole member of Rhinidae in the order Rajiformes, which is supported by morphological but not molecular data.