11-27 



In contrast to the winter flounder, however, the thin body of the win- 

 dowpane makes filleting difficult; thus, the latter species is of little 

 commercial importance. The principal prey items for the windowpane 

 include mysids (especially Neomysis americana) , sand shrimp {Crangon 

 septemspinosa) and amphipods (Moore, 1947) . Individuals ranging in size 

 from 4 to 35 cm long (i.e., both juveniles and adults) were abundant in 

 New Haven Harbor collections (Figure 11-6) . 



There is little evidence of seasonal onshore-offshore move- 

 ments for the windowpane flovmder of the type exhibited by the winter 

 flounder (Moore, 1947) . Windowpanes are apparently less migratory than 

 the winter flounder, and are more tolerant of widely contrasting winter 

 to summer temperature conditions that prevail in shallow embayments 

 (Moore, 1947) . Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) advanced the opinion that 

 as a minimum requirement, siommer temperatures must exceed 12 °C to reach 

 the approximate threshold above which spawning can successfully occur. 

 This may determine the northward limit of this species' zoogeographic 

 distribution . 



Windowpanes were caught more effectively by the otter trawl 

 than by either the gill net or beach seine. Particularly large catches 

 were recorded for the windowpane in 1971 (Figure 11-7) . Seasonal 

 catches have usually been lowest early in the calendar year and in late 

 summer (Figure 11-7) . There is also some indication from the trawl data 

 that catches tend to be higher towards the outer reaches of the harbor. 

 Moore (1947) reported that Long Island Sound is a center of abundance 

 for windowpanes. Trawl sampling at Shoreham (NYOSL, 1974) indicated a 

 windowpane population siibstantially more dense that that of New Haven, 

 while similar sampling in Niantic Bay (NUSCO, 1976) yielded population 

 estimates less than one-half those observed in New Haven Harbor. 



Windowpane are frequently found on the traveling screens of 

 New Haven Harbor Station, but usually in relatively low numbers. The 

 highest recorded levels of impingement occurred in January 1976 and 

 from late November to mid December 1977, and were about 16 fish per day. 



(Text continued on page 11-31) 



