FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



291 



broad), and so thin through that its body is trans- 

 lucent when it is held up against the light. Its 

 pectoral fins, too, are longer than in our other left- 

 handed flatfishes; its caudal fin is more rounded; 

 and its teeth smaller although the gape of the 

 mouth is wide. 



The dorsal (right) fin (63 to 69 rays) tapers 

 toward the tail; the anal (left) fin (46 to 52 rays) 

 tapers toward head and tail, while both of these 

 fins are noticeably thick and fleshy at the base; 

 and there is no free anal spine. The pectoral fin 

 on the eyed side is longer and more pointed than 

 its mate on the blind side; the scales are smooth 

 to the touch ; and the lateral line is bowed abreast 

 of the pectoral fin. 



Color.— The sand flounder varies less in color 

 than most shoal-water flatfishes do, the general 

 ground tint of its eyed side (both as described by 

 previous authors and in those we have seen) being 

 of a pale and rather translucent greenish olive or 

 slightly reddish or light slaty brown more or less 

 mottled with darker and paler, and usually (if not 

 always) dotted with many small brown spots of 

 irregular shapes. Some fish are also marked on 

 the body and on the bases of the dorsal, anal, and 

 caudal fins with white spots that vary in number 



and in size from fish to fish. But others lack these 

 spots. The dorsal, anal, and caudal fins are of the 

 general body tint, more or less mottled with 

 darker, while the pectoral of the eyed side is dark 

 crossbarred or speckled. The blind side is white in 

 most of them, but specimens have been seen on 

 which it was irregularly dark-blotched. 1 



Size. — The sand flounder is said to grow to a 

 maximum length of 18 inches and to a weight of 2 

 pounds. But the largest we have seen (from 

 Waquoit on the southern shore of Massachusetts) , 

 were about 15 inches long. And adult fish run 

 only about 10 or 11 to 12 inches in length. Sand 

 flounders from southern New England measured 

 by Moore 2 averaged about )i pound at 8 inches : 

 about %. pound at 10 inches; about % pound at 

 12 inches; and a little more than 1 pound at 14 

 inches. 



Habits. — The sand flounder is a shoal-water fish. 

 Its upper limit is close below the tide mark, and 

 the 20 to 25 fathom line probably marks its lower 

 limit, in general, in the coastal zone north of 

 Cape Cod. But Moore reports it as occurring 

 regularly down to 27 fathoms off Connecticut, and 



' Moore, Bull. Bingham Oceanogr. Coll., vol. 11, art. 3, 1947, p. 20. 

 > Bull. Bingham Oceanogr. Coll., vol. 11, art. 3, 1947, p. 63, flg. 12. 



Figure 151. — Sand flounder (Lophopsetta maculata). From Jordan and Evermann. Drawing by H. L. Todd. 



