perciform fish sillago-whiting family WIKIPEDIA:Sillaginidae The *Sillaginidae*, commonly known as the smelt-whitings, whitings, sillaginids, sand borers and sand-smelts, are a family of benthic coastal marine fishes in the order Perciformes. 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 family comprises only three genera and thirty one 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. They are elongate, slightly compressed fish often light brown to silver in colour with a variety of markings and patterns on their upper body. 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*. sand borers sand-smelts sillaginidae slillaginids smelt whitings smelt-whitings whitings requires discussion