percentage of any of the predators' diets; 24.9% of the diet of Gulf 

 Stream flounder. Much of the annelid remains were unidentified, 

 and so it is difficult to conclude if any of the four flatfish are relying 

 on the same specific annelid prey. 



MiiUuscs were the major prey of three of the eight flatfish (Table 

 1 . Cephalopods were a major component of the prey of summer 

 flounder (51.0%) and fourspot flounder (19.3%), and bivalves ac- 

 1. un'ed^ar 15.3% of the diet of winter flounder. The cephalopods 

 found in che stomachs of summer and fourspot flounder were all 

 s.|uioi, and both fish shared the same genus, Loligo, as prey. 



Pisces were important prey for two of the species under 

 consideration. Summer flounder preyed heavily on fish (47.8%) 

 and particularly the gadid Merlucciiis bilinearis (26.1%). This 

 dependence on silver hake, however, may be slightly over- 

 emphasized because of the small number of fish stomachs 

 examined. Nevertheless, the fourspot flounder also preyed on fish 

 (28.5%), and, in this case, silver hake were a legitimate prey item 

 (21.0%) together with several other species of fish. 



Echinoderms were preyed on extensively by American plaice 

 (Table 1). As a major phylum, this taxon is noteworthy as being of 

 very little significance as prey of other flatfish. Apart from 

 American plaice, only witch flounder had >5% of its diet 

 represented by echinoderms, and most of these were holothuroi- 

 deans rather than the echinoids and ophiuroids preyed on by the 

 plaice. 



The Cnidaria are the only other taxa that can be considered as 

 major prey, and, like the echinoderms only one of the eight poten- 

 tial predators, the winter flounder, consumed a significant quantity 

 of these animals (Table 1). 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



We thank Roland Wigley for his guidance in the preparation of 

 this manuscript and also Eleanore Beale, Elke Bergholz-Nelson, 

 Edward Brown-Leger, Deborah Hartley, Martha Hill, Caroline 

 Karp, Ray Maurer, Thomas Morris, Janet Murphy, Jacqueline 

 Murray, and Lisa Urry who helped collect and analyze the stomach 

 contents. Our special thanks go to Barbara North for her assistance 

 with the computerized tabulation of all the data. 



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15 



