The Latidae, known as the lates perches, are a family of perch-like fish found in

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, and the

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and western

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s. Including about 13 species, the family, previously classified subfamily Latinae in family Centropomidae, was raised to family status in 2004 after a

cladistic analysis Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived chara ...

showed the original Centropomidae were

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

. The Latidae are characterised by having

dorsal fins A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through conv ...

that are incompletely separated, or if they are separated, a few isolated spines will be found between the anterior and posterior parts of the fin. Their

caudal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

is normally rounded. All species have a

vertebral column The vertebral column, also known as the backbone or spine, is part of the axial skeleton. The vertebral column is the defining characteristic of a vertebrate in which the notochord (a flexible rod of uniform composition) found in all chordata, ...

made up of 25

vertebrae The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates,Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristic i ...

. Many species in this family are important food fishes, and some have been introduced outside their native ranges to provide fishing stocks. The freshwater

Nile perch The Nile perch (''Lates niloticus''), also known as the African snook, Goliath perch, African barramundi , Goliath barramundi, Giant lates or the Victoria perch, is a species of freshwater fish in family Latidae of order Perciformes. It is wi ...

, a fierce predator, has become infamous, as its introduction into Lake Victoria in the 1950s has wrought devastation on the native fishes of the lake, causing the

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

of many endemic

cichlid Cichlids are fish from the family Cichlidae in the order Cichliformes. Cichlids were traditionally classed in a suborder, the Labroidei, along with the wrasses ( Labridae), in the order Perciformes, but molecular studies have contradicted this ...

s there.Pringle, R.M. (2005)
The Origins of the Nile Perch in Lake Victoria.
BioScience 55 (9): 780-787.

Genera

The Latidae contain three extant and one extinct genera: * †''

Eolates ''Eolates'' is an extinct genus of prehistoric ray-finned fish. See also * Prehistoric fish The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. It was during this time that the early chordates developed ...

'' Sorbini, 1970 * ''

Hypopterus The spikey bass (''Hypopterus macropterus'') is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Latidae, the lates perches. It is endemic to coastal waters off Western Australia, where it inhabits areas with soft substrates. It is the only species i ...

Gill A gill () is a respiratory organ that many aquatic organisms use to extract dissolved oxygen from water and to excrete carbon dioxide. The gills of some species, such as hermit crabs, have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are ...

, 1861 * ''

Lates ''Lates'' is a genus of freshwater and euryhaline lates perches belonging to the family Latidae. The generic name is also used as a common name, lates, for many of the species. All species are predatory, and the Nile perch (''L. niloticus''), in ...

'' Cuvier, 1828 * ''

Psammoperca The Waigieu seaperch (''Psammoperca waigiensis''), or Waigeo barramundi, is a species of marine fish in family Latidae of order Perciformes. The only species of genus ''Psammoperca'', it is native to tropical coastal waters from the Bay of Ben ...

Richardson Richardson may refer to: People * Richardson (surname), an English and Scottish surname * Richardson Gang, a London crime gang in the 1960s * Richardson Dilworth, Mayor of Philadelphia (1956-1962) Places Australia * Richardson, Australian Cap ...

, 1848 † denotes that this taxon is extinct

References

Marine fish families Taxa named by David Starr Jordan {{Percoidea-stub