Galaxies with box/peanut-shaped (b/p) bulges have been known for some time (e.g., NGC 128 and NGC 7332 (Sandage 1961)). Observationally, b/p features are detected in edge-on systems, and are visible in images, contour maps, and brightness profiles as isophote sections that near minor axis are relatively flat and parallel to major axis (see Figure 1). Peanut-type bulges have isophotes indented at the intersection with the minor axis.

There have been several morphological surveys to date. The two most recent studies have found that about 20% of early-type galaxies and nearly 45% of all disk galaxies are b/p galaxies (see Shaw 1987, Dettmar 1989, and references therein) and that the b/p galaxy properties appear similar to normal spirals in the optical, radio, and infrared. A few kinematical studies have been done: b/p bulges are found to rotate more like disks than bulges (e.g., 150 km s−1 up to 6 kpc above the plane in NGC 128 (Jarvis 1990) and the velocities remain constant up to large z, implying cylindrical rotation (e.g., NGC 3079 has v constant out to 1.6 kpc (Shaw et al. 1993)).