Cabinda Province
The genus "Leptocharias" was coined by South African physician and zoologist Andrew Smith, without any associated species, in an 1838 "Magazine of Natural History" article by Johannes Müller and Friedrich Henle. Müller and Henle added a species a year later in their "Systematische Beschreibung der Plagiostomen", but adopted the name "Triaenodon smithii" because they regarded "Leptocharias" as a junior synonym of "Triaenodon". Later authors recognized the validity of "Leptocharias", and shuffled it between the families Carcharhinidae and Triakidae before placing it in its own family. The type specimen is an adult male collected off Cabinda Province, Angola.