 The family is thought to have evolved in the Tethys Sea of central Australia, before colonizing southern Australia during the upper Eocene after a seaway broke through south of Tasmania.During the Oligocene, the family spread to the north and south, occupying a much more extensive range than their current Indo-Pacific distribution.Fossils suggest the sillaginids ranged as far north as Poland and Germany, and as far south as New Zealand, found in shallow water sedimentary deposits along with other species of extant genera.