Galaxias kaikorai was named by Whitley (1956). Its type specimen is OU 6330, 6331, a skeleton (mostly complete, articulated, post-cranial skeleton), and it is a 3D body fossil. Its type locality is Frasers Gully, which is in a Lillburnian marine diatomite in the Kaikorai Leaf Beds Diatomite Formation of New Zealand.