The first review of the sillaginid fishes was Gill's 1861 work "Synopsis of the sillaginoids", in which the name "Sillaginidae" was popularized and expanded on to include Sillaginodes and Sillaginopsis, however the debate on the placement of the family remained controversial. There were, however, many differing opinions on the relationships of the "sillaginoids", leading to the naturalists of the day continually revising the position of the five genera, placing in them in a number of families. John Richardson was the first to propose that Sillago, the only genus of sillaginid then recognised, be assigned to their own taxonomic family, "Sillaginidae" (used interchangeably with 'Sillaginoidae'), at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The species Cheilodipterus panijus was named in 1822 by Francis Buchanan-Hamilton and was subsequently reexamined by Theodore Gill in 1861, leading to the creation of the monotypic genus Sillaginopsis. Cuvier continued to describe species of sillaginid with the publishing of his ichthyological work Histoire Naturelle des Poissons with Achille Valenciennes in 1829, also erecting the genus Sillaginodes in this work. It was not until 1817 that the type genus Sillago was created by Georges Cuvier based on his newly described species Sillago acuta, which was later found to be a junior synonym of S. The first species of sillaginid to be scientifically described was Sillago sihama, by Peter Forsskål in 1775, who initially referred the species to a genus of hardyhead, Atherina. Taxonomy Roland McKay's 1992 Synopsis of the Sillaginidae In Australia and Japan in particular, members of the family are often highly sought by recreational fishermen who also seek the fish for their prized flesh. Smelt-whitings are caught by a number of methods, including trawling, seine nets, and cast nets. Many species are also of major importance to small subsistence fisheries, while others are little more than occasional bycatch. The family is highly important to fisheries throughout the Indo-Pacific, with species such as the northern whiting, Japanese whiting, and King George whiting forming the basis of major fisheries throughout their range. Smelt-whitings are benthic carnivores that prey predominantly on polychaetes, a variety of crustaceans, molluscs, and to a lesser extent echinoderms and fish, feeding by detecting vibrations emitted by their prey. A few species predominantly live offshore on deep sand shoals and reefs, although the larvae and juvenile phases of most species return to inshore grounds, where they spend the first few years of their lives. The smelt-whitings are mostly inshore fishes that inhabit sandy, silty, and muddy substrates on both low- and high-energy environments ranging from protected tidal flats and estuaries to surf zones. The Sillaginidae are not related to a number of fishes commonly called ' whiting' in the Northern Hemisphere, including the fish originally called whiting, Merlangius merlangus. They are elongated, slightly compressed fish, often light brown to silver in colour, with a variety of markings and patterns on their upper bodies. The family comprises only five genera and 35 species, of which a number are dubious, with the last major revision of the family in 1992 unable to confirm the validity of a number of species. The smelt-whitings inhabit a wide region covering much of the Indo-Pacific, from the west coast of Africa east to Japan and south to Australia. The Sillaginidae, commonly known as the smelt-whitings, whitings, sillaginids, sand borers and sand-smelts, are a family of benthic coastal marine fish in the order Perciformes.
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