sentences:  Some authors questioned the validity of the species, and in 1977 Jeffrey Alan Seigel and colleagues synonymized "S. aliae" with "S. laticaudus".In 1987, Kunio Sasaki and Teruya Uyeno performed morphological comparisons and reaffirmed the distinctiveness of "S. aliae".The smalleye pygmy shark appears to be widely distributed, but in patches, in the western Pacific Ocean, having been reported from off southern Japan, the Philippines, and northern and eastern Australia.