Table 15. —The aeasonal distribution of winter flounder, Pseudopleuronectes 

 americanuB . larvae by aize. Numbers are adjusted to standardize sampling 

 effort. 



data strongly suggests that warming spring temperatures 

 are a triggering mechanism for the onset of spawning. Most 

 of the larvae caught during the three spring cruises occurred 

 within 25 km of shore (Fig. 64). Whether or not they were 

 flushed from nearby estuaries or spawned at sea, chances 

 for their survival seem remote, since estuaries are 

 apparently necessary as both spawning and nursery 

 grounds. Our trawl records from coastal groundfish surveys 

 support this theory. Young-of-the-year have not been 

 collected along the oceanfront, but they are caught in the 

 estuaries. 



III. Family Soleidae— Soles 



Gymnachirus meUu Nichols, naked sole.— Naked sole 

 range from Massachusetts to Florida and into the Gulf of 

 Mexico, but only one specimen has been collected north of 

 Cape Hatteras. They are the only member of the family 

 found in offshore shelf waters off the eastern United States 

 (Dawson 1964). From gonadal studies, Topp and Hoff (1972) 

 estimated that spawning occurred from May to November 

 off the west coast of Florida. Larvae have not been 

 described. Larval identifications are based on morphological 

 characters, fin ray counts, pigmentation, and the reported 

 range of adults. 



We caught 12 specimens between 3.2 and 8.2 mm. All 

 were caught between capes Hatteras and Lookout from 

 April through August, half of them in May. Since we caught 

 all the larvae except one on the outer half of the shelf, they 

 had probably been transported into our survey area by the 

 Gulf Stream. 



IV. Family Cynoglossidae 



Symphurus spp., tonguefishes.— The ranges of five 

 species of Symphurus extend into the survey area. None of 

 the five are common north of Cape Hatteras, but some occur 

 more regularly than others. Symphurus diomedianus (Goode 

 and Bean) range from North Carolina to Brazil; S. minor 

 Ginsburg from Nova Scotia to Florida and into the Gulf of 



Mexico; S. plagiusa (Linnaeus) from New York to the 

 Bahamas and Greater Antilles, and into the Gulf of Mexico. 

 Symphurus civitatus Ginsburg has been collected from 

 North Carolina to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, and S. 

 pusillus (Goode and Bean) from New York and the Gulf of 

 Mexico (Ginsburg 1951; Topp and Hoff 1972). HUdebrand 

 and Cable (1930) described early development of a tongue- 

 fish they thought was S. plagiusa. Larvae of the other 

 species have not been described. 



Our collections may contain larvae of all five species, and 

 perhaps representatives of one or more species that are not 

 found as adults in the survey area. We could identify a few 

 specimens of only one. S. minor. Because meristic 

 characters of the others widely overlap, we could not make 

 positive identifications beyond the generic level, so all the 

 larvae are treated as Symphurus spp. 



The presence of more than one species of Symphurus 

 larvae in our collections, coupled with the unpredictable 

 influence of the Gulf Stream on their distribution, makes 

 interpretation of the data speculative. Although we caught 

 larvae the year-round, differences in seasonal distribution as 

 well as size and numbers of larvae make it doubtful that any 

 one species dominated the catch on all cruises. We 

 interpreted the catch as being represented by at least two 

 species that have overlapping spawning seasons that 

 together continued the year-round. 



Because S. plagiusa is a shoal-water species limited to 

 depths <26 m as adults (Ginsburg 1951), we concluded that 

 most of the larvae caught from January to May at depths 

 >40 m represented one or more of the other species. Based 

 on their size and the pattern of distribution, larvae caught 

 from January to April were spawned south of Cape Lookout 

 and subsequently transported into the survey area by the 

 Gulf Stream (Fig. 65). Some of those caught in May might 

 also have been spawned south of our survey area, but the 

 concentration of small larvae nearshore between capes 

 Lookout and Hatteras might have been spawned locally 

 (Fig. 66). 



The catch declined in June. The distribution of larvae 

 resembled that of the previous two cruises, and probably 



60 



