The wolf herrings are a family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 (Chirocentridae) of two marine species of ray-finned fish related to the herring

Herring

Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...

s.

Both species have elongated bodies and jaws with long sharp teeth that facilitate their ravenous appetites, mostly for other fish. Both species reach a length of 1 m. They have silvery sides and bluish backs.

They are commercially fished, and marketed fresh or frozen.

Species

• Chirocentrus dorab (Forsskål
  Peter Forsskål
  Peter Forsskål, sometimes spelled Pehr Forsskål, Peter Forskaol, Petrus Forskål or Pehr Forsskåhl, was a Swedish explorer, orientalist, naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus.-Early life:...
  
  , 1775) (Dorab wolf-herring) (found in warm coastal waters from the Red Sea
  Red Sea
  The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...
  
   to Japan
  Japan
  Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
  
   and Australia
  Australia
  Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
  
  )
• Chirocentrus nudus Swainson, 1839 (Whitefin wolf-herring) (found in a similar range) This species is difficult to distinguish from C. dorab (the former has a black mark on its dorsal fin
  Dorsal fin
  A dorsal fin is a fin located on the backs of various unrelated marine and freshwater vertebrates, including most fishes, marine mammals , and the ichthyosaurs...
  
  ). This species is also known to eat crab
  Crab
  True crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax...
  
  s in addition to its usual diet of smaller fish.