 The ricefish were formerly classified within the order Cyprinodontiformes but in the 1980s workers showed that they were a monophyletic grouping, mainly based on the characters on the bones of the gill arches and the hyoid apparatus, within the Beloniformes as the family Adrianichthyidae, this family making up one of the three suborders of the Beloniformes, the Adrianichthyoidei.Since then some workers have placed them in the Cyprinodontiformes but more recently molecular studies have supported their placement in the Beloniformes.Ricefish are believed to have been kept as aquarium fishes since the 17th century.