Otolithes

Otolithes is a small genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Sciaenidae, the drums and croakers. The three recognised species in the genus are found in the Indo-West Pacific region.

==Taxonomy== Otolithes was first proposed as a genus in 1817 by the German naturalist Lorenz Oken. Its only species was Johnius ruber, which had been described by Marcus Elieser Bloch and Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider in 1801 from the "Indian Ocean". J. ruber was subsequently designated as the type species of the genus in 1861 by Theodore Gill. Workers have recognised that there were more than two taxonomic units, or lineages, within Otolithes and that these may represent previously unrecognised cryptic species and in 2019 O. arabicus from the Persian Gulf was described as a third species in the genus, distinct from O. ruber and there may be a fourth, as yet undescribed, species in the western Indian Ocean which is found from South Africa to Gujarat. This genus has been placed in the subfamily Otolithinae by some workers, but the 5th edition of Fishes of the World does not recognise subfamilies within the Sciaenidae, which it places in the order Acanthuriformes.