Wolf herrings are a

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

(Chirocentridae) of two marine species of

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

related to

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

s. Both species have elongated bodies and jaws with long sharp teeth that aid their ravenous appetites, primarily for other fish. They can grow up to1 m in length and have silvery sides with bluish backs. They are commercially fished and sold fresh or frozen.

Species

* ''

Chirocentrus dorab The dorab wolf-herring (''Chirocentrus dorab'') is a fish species from the genus '' Chirocentrus'' of the family Chirocentridae. It is a coastal fish, silvery below and bright blue above. It is found in both marine and brackish or estuarine water ...

'' (

Fabricius Fabricius (, ) is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *people from the Ancient Roman Fabricia gens, gens Fabricia: **Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, the first of the Fabricii to move to Rome * Johann Goldsmid (1587–1616), known by his ...

, 1775) - Dorab wolf-herring, found in warm coastal waters from the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

* ''

Chirocentrus nudus ''Chirocentrus nudus'', the whitefin wolf-herring, is a fish species from the genus '' Chirocentrus'' of the family ''Chirocentridae''. It is a ''coastal fish'' found in Marine neritic waters feeding mainly on other small fish. Description Whi ...

'' Swainson, 1839 - whitefin wolf-herring, found in a similar range (This species is difficult to distinguish from ''C. dorab''; the former has a black mark on its

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

. This species is also known to eat

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...

s in addition to its usual diet of smaller fish.)

References

* Fish of the Indian Ocean Extant Eocene first appearances Taxa named by Georges Cuvier {{Clupeiformes-stub