Taxonomy and Naming
The King George whiting is the only species nested in the genus Sillaginodes, which itself is in the family Sillaginidae, containing all the smelt whitings. The Sillaginidae are part of the Percoidei, a suborder of the order Perciformes.
The King George whiting was first officially named by Cuvier in 1829 as Sillago punctata, based on an individual taken from King George Sound in Western Australia. In 1861, Theodore Gill created the monotypic genus Sillaginodes based on a number or morphological characteristics and assigned S. punctatus to it. A number of synonyms have been applied after the initial correct naming, apparently due to Cuvier not designating a holotype, or it being lost. A lectotype was finally designated by McKay in 1985. The species has a variety of common names (many now obsolete), with the most common, “King George whiting”, taken from the name of the body of water where the initial description was made. It is also often called the spotted whiting in reference to its obliquely positioned bars of brown spots, with other names used in markets, especially outside of Australia.
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