Lethrinus

Lethrinus is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Lethrinidae, the emperors and emperor breams. These fishes are mostly found in the Indian and western Pacific Oceans, with a single species in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.

==Taxonomy== Lethrinus was first proposed as a genus in 1829 by the French zoologist Georges Cuvier. In 1912 David Starr Jordan and William Francis Thompson designated Sparus choerorynchus as the type species of the genus. Sparus choerorynchus had been described in 1801 by Marcus Elieser Bloch and Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider with its type locality given as Japan. Sparus choerorynchus is now considered to be a synonym of Lethrinus nebulosus (Forsskål 1775). Some authors place this genus in the monotypic subfamily Lethrininae, with all the other genera of Lethrinidae placed in the Monotaxinae, however, the 5th edition of Fishes of the World does not recognise the subfamilies traditionally accepted within the family Lethrinidae as valid. The family Lethrinidae is classified by the 5th edition of Fishes of the World as belonging to the order Spariformes.