The genus Emblemaria presently includes 14 species, five in the eastern Pacific and nine in the western North Atlantic. Several individuals of an undescribed species of this genus were obtained by trawling along the northeastern Brazilian coast in 1981, in depths between 10 and 30 m. This new Emblemaria species best agrees with Emblemaria pandionis in counts and morphometrics, but differs in the number of palatine teeth and in the height of the first dorsal fin spine. The only other Atlantic species having an elongated first dorsal fin spine is Emblemaria hyltoni, but it differs from the new species mainly by having only two obvious segmented pelvic fin rays, and also by having a much longer first dorsal fin spine. Emblemaria australis sp. nov. is sexually dimorphic in several characters. This new species is found mostly over sand and rubble bottoms of the northeastern Brazilian continental shelf.