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The eastern school whiting, ''Sillago flindersi'' (also known as the redspot whiting and the Bass Strait whiting), is a species of benthic marine fish of the smelt-whiting family Sillaginidae. The eastern school whiting is endemic to Australia, distributed along the east coast from southern Queensland down to Tasmania and South Australia, where it inhabits sandy substrates from shallow tidal flats to depths of 180 m on the continental shelf. Eastern school whiting prey on various crustaceans and polychaete worms, with the diet varying seasonally and throughout the range of the species. Eastern school whiting reproduce in the deeper waters twice a year, releasing up to 110,000 eggs during a season. Eastern school whiting are a major commercial species along the eastern coast of Australia, caught by Danish seine vessels in the Bass Strait and as a byproduct of prawn trawling to the north. This forms a large export market to Japan, with over 1400 tonnes per year caught and exported. ==Taxonomy and naming== The eastern school whiting is one of 29 species in the genus ''Sillago'', which is one of three divisions of the smelt whiting family Sillaginidae. The smelt-whitings are Perciformes in the suborder Percoidea. The eastern school whiting belongs to the subgenus ''Parasillago'', which is one of three subgenera erected during a comprehensive review of the Sillaginidae in 1985 by McKay. The Eastern school whiting was long thought to be synonymous with the closely related species ''Sillago bassensis'', the southern school whiting, with this relationship first applied in 1892 by Cohen. It took until 1985 before McKay identified two distinct forms of ''Sillago bassensis'', which he believed to subspecies, thus erecting ''Sillago bassensis flindersi'' for the eastern subspecies and ''Sillago bassensis bassensis'' for the western subspecies.〔 These subspecies were formally promoted to separate species status in 1992, during a second review of the family by McKay after the two species were found to occur sympatrically in Bass Strait. The binomial name of the species was named in honour of the explorer Captain Matthew Flinders, who circumnavigated and extensively mapped the coastline of Australia.〔 The various common names of the so-called 'school whitings' is complicated, with the original use of western and eastern school whiting to describe ''S. bassensis'' and ''S. flindersi'' affected by the naming of a third species of school whiting; ''Sillago vittata''. This has not affected ''S. flindersi'', which is still named the 'eastern school whiting' in recognition that it inhabits the east coast of Australia. The local name of 'red-spot whiting' refers to the diagonal lines of red spots present on the fish's upper side. The rarely used name of 'Bass Straight whiting' refers to oceanic strait between the Victorian and Tasmanian coastlines, where large quantities of the species are taken in trawls.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eastern school whiting」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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