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FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



Welsh saw it taken on Georges Bank down to 30 

 or 40 fathoms, while the Albatross III trawled a 

 few on the southwest part of the Bank along this 

 same depth zone in May 1950. 



It is caught chiefly on sand bottom off southern 

 New England and southward, as its name implies, 

 but its comparative abundance in Casco Bay and 

 in Minas Channel shows that it also frequents 

 softer and muddier grounds in the Gulf of Maine. 



The sand flounder is a year-round resident off 

 the southern New England coast, and probably 

 this applies to it in the Gulf of Maine also, there 

 being no evidence that the adults carry out any 

 migrations inshore or offshore, with the change of 

 the seasons. But such of the young fry as settle 

 to bottom in shallow water inshore tend to work 

 offshore as they grow, and deeper, while tagging 

 experiments off southern New England have shown 

 that individual sand flounders may wander along 

 the coast for considerable distances, or across open 

 water, much as winter flounders do (p. 279) . Some 

 of them went as far as 80 miles in 3 months. 3 

 And it is probable that the wanderings of the 

 adults play an important part in the intermingling 

 of local populations. 



The adult sand flounder is necessarily attuned 

 to a wide temperature, occurring as it does over 

 many degrees of latitude, and in shallow waters 

 where it is exposed to the extremes of winter 

 chilling and of summer warming. Such of them 

 as winter in shoal bays experience winter tempera- 

 tures close to the freezing point of salt water in 

 winter, not only in the northern part of their 

 range, but even as far south as the Connecticut 

 shore. 4 And it is probable that the entire popula- 

 tion hi the Gulf of Maine winter in water colder 

 than 36° F. But these same fish summer in 

 temperatures of 50° to 70°, according to locality 

 and depth. And some sand flounders summer in 

 still higher temperatures farther south. Never- 

 theless, it seems that temperature is the factor 

 that governs the northerly range of the species 

 and its local abundance, for it is only where the 

 surface waters warm to 55° or higher in summer, 

 as happens in Massachusetts Bay, in Casco Bay, 

 in Minas Channel, and over the southern shallows 



• For details, see Moore's (Bull. Bingham Oceanogr. Coll., vol. 11, art.3 

 1947, pp. 58-63) detailed study of the sand flounder in southern New England 

 waters. 



* Warfel and Merriman (Bull. Bingham Oceanogr. Coll., vol. 9, art. 2, 1944. 

 pp. 61-62) give details of temperature and salinity for Connecticut waters, 

 with references. 



of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, that the sand flounder 

 is able to maintain itself in any numbers. Ap- 

 parently either its eggs or its young larvae, or 

 both, fail to develop in lower temperatures (p. 293) . 

 And these isolated breeding centers are not pro- 

 ductive enough to stock the intervening stretches 

 of shoreline in the case of a fish as stationary as 

 the sand flounder. Thus its distribution is some- 

 what analagous to that of the oyster. 



The large mouth of the sand flounder suggests 

 that it feeds on active prey. Welsh, in his field 

 notes, remarked, in fact, that sand flounders 

 caught off Atlantic City, N. J., were full of "schizo- 

 pod shrimps" (mysids) and of these alone, and 

 mysid shrimps (Neomysis americana) had similarly 

 been the predominant item in all months of the 

 year, for 654 Long Island Sound fish examined by 

 Moore, 5 with shrimps of other kinds ranking 

 second. Moore also concluded that the few fishes 

 included in their diet were not enough to class the 

 sand flounder as a fish eater. But hake, herring, 

 launce, and silversides have been found in their 

 stomachs at Woods Hole, while North Carolina 

 specimens had eaten fish, also crabs and shrimps. 8 

 And we suspect that they seize small fish whenever 

 they can, for we once hooked a sand flounder only 

 about 12 inches long on a 2%-ounce metal jig, while 

 we were casting for striped bass in the surf on 

 Orleans Beach, Cape Cod. 



A variety of small invertebrates other than 

 shrimp have also been found in their stomachs; 

 Vinal Edwards noted annelid worms, crabs, squid, 

 small mollusks, ascidians and even seaweed, to 

 which Moore adds gammarids and other small 

 Crustacea, worm tubes, sea cucumbers (holo- 

 thurians), glass worms (Sagitta), and sand. A 

 larval sand flounder 11.5 mm. long examined by 

 Moore 7 contained minute copepods (Temora and 

 Centropages) and amphipods (Unciola and Lepto- 

 cheirus). 



The sand flounder is a late spring and summer 

 spawner in the northern part of its range; thus 

 Welsh found them spawning late in June at 

 Gloucester, and ripe fish are taken at Woods Hole 

 in May and June, while Moore reports sand 

 flounders ripe in Long Island Sound from early 

 May to August, with some still incompletely 

 spawned out there in September. And it seems 



' Bull. Bingham Oceanogr. Coll., vol. 11, art. 3, 1947, pp. 54-58. 

 • Smith, North Carolina Econ. Geol. Survey, vol. 2, 1897, p. 392. 

 'Bull. Bingham Oceanogr. Coll., vol. 11, art. 3, 1947, pp. 26-27 



