Table 8. — Geographic breakdown ol (he slumach contents of winler flounder. f'\eudopleuronectes amerkunus, 

 in Che norlhwesi Allanlic. Data are expre!>sed as a percentage weight for fish collected during the spring and 

 autumn bottom trawl survey cruises. 1969-72. ( + indicates present but <0.1^o.) 



arctifrons, but there are some data on two congeneric species, 

 the bay whiff, C. spilopterus, and Pacific sand dab, C. sordidus. 

 The bay whiff occurs along the Atlantic coast, and in a study of 

 the food of Georgia estuarine fishes Stickney et al. (1974) found 

 that the diet of this species was dominated by the mysid, 

 Neomysis americana, for fish from 5.0 to 12.4 cm standard 

 length, while the penaeid shrimp, Trachypeneus constrictus, was 

 the major prey for fish between 12.5 and 14.9 cm. The Pacific 

 sand dab, off the Oregon coast, was found to be a pelagic-feed- 

 ing type, preying on the northern anchovy, Engaulis mordax, 

 euphausiids, shrimp, amphipods, and crab larvae (Pearcy and 

 Vanderploeg 1973; Kravitz et al. 1976; Pearcy and Hancock 

 1978). The diet of the Gulf Stream flounder in the northwest 



Atlantic is different from its congenerics. Annelids and arthro- 

 pods were of about equal importance in the diet (Table 1), while 

 neither the bay whiff nor the Pacific sand dab were found to 

 prey on annelids to any great extent (see Pearcy and Hancock 

 1978). Furthermore, within the Arthropoda, mysids were 

 noticeably unimportant, which is in sharp contrast to the report 

 of Stickney et al. (1974) for C. spilopterus. Pearcy and 

 Hancock's (1978) description of C. sordidus as a strictly pelagic- 

 feeding type is not applicable to C. arctifrons. Although the 

 Gulf Stream flounder feeds on some pelagic prey, benthic inver- 

 tebrates account for a very l£u-ge part of its diet and this species 

 of Citharichthys has to be considered more of a benthic or 

 bentho-pelagic feeder. 



12 



