In the 1970s Australian bass and estuary perch were moved into the genus "Macquaria" – one of a number of Australian genera in the family Percichthyidae – along with two species of native perch from the Murray-Darling Basin, golden perch ("Macquaria ambigua") and Macquarie perch ("Macquaria australasica"). Prior to that, Australian bass and estuary perch were in a separate genus, "Percalates". (The generic name "Percalates" is a compound of the generic names "Perca" and "Lates", and arose from an early, erroneous taxonomic belief that Australian bass were an old world perch related to barramundi ("Lates calcarifer")).