 Populations off Australia and New Zealand were formerly included in this species, but in 2007 these were assigned to a new species, the southern Mandarin dogfish.It is not clear which of these species is involved in other populations from the tropical West Pacific.In March 2013 it was announced that two sharks caught near Rottnest Island off the coast of Western Australia in 2011 had been identified as "Cirrhigaleus barbifer".