FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 81, NO. 1 



usually occurring in mid-May (Lux and Living- 

 ston in press). Prior to spawning the gonad goes 

 through various stages of development which 

 were evaluated in relation to the fishes' diet. 

 Spawning fish were found to contain the least 

 amount of prey in the stomachs, which is consis- 

 tent with Libey and Cole's (1979) observations on 

 feeding intensity related to spawning, and fish 

 with resting-stage and developing gonads con- 

 tained the greatest quantity of prey. These later 

 two stages were usually observed in late autumn 

 or on spring survey cruises and are reflected in 

 the larger values of the mean weight of stomach 

 contents in the spring. In contrast to the yellow- 

 tail flounder's congener, L. limanda, there were 

 no seasonal or reproductive stage influences on 

 the actual composition of the diet (Arntz 1971). 



The major difference in diet over the geo- 

 graphic range of this study was the change in the 

 mean weight of stomach contents from the Mid- 

 dle Atlantic through southern New England onto 

 Georges Bank. There was, for example, a 75% in- 

 crease (0.12 to 0.21% body weight) in the relative 

 mean weight of stomach contents from the Mid- 

 dle Atlantic to Georges Bank. This same pattern 

 was observed by Efanov and Vinogradov (1973), 

 who noted that yellowtail flounder feed more in- 

 tensively on Georges Bank than in southern New 

 England. 



In summary, the yellowtail flounder is a ben- 

 thic predator occurring, for the most part, in 

 depths of 38 to 110 m and at temperatures rang- 

 ing from 3° to 15°C. All size classes and both 

 sexes of yellowtail flounder prey heavily on poly- 

 chaetes and amphipods throughout the year and 

 over their entire geographic range. Yellowtail 

 flounder feed more intensively in the spring, 

 prior to spawning, than in the fall. They also feed 

 more intensively on Georges Bank than in other 

 geographic areas and are daytime feeders with a 

 peak in the stomach content weight occurring in 

 the late afternoon to early evening. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



Numerous people helped in the collection and 

 stomach content analysis described herein. In 

 particular, I want to thank Edward Brown- 

 Leger, Ray Bowman, Jacqueline Murray, and 

 Barbara North for their assistance and persist- 

 ence in overcoming the problem in establishing 

 and maintaining an extensive data collection sys- 

 tem; Clem Walton for reviewing the paper; and 

 Pat Hoyt for typing the manuscript. 



LITERATURE CITED 



Arntz, W. E. 



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