Platichthys flesus (Linnaeus) / EUROPEAN FLOUNDER

About this Item

Name

Family: Pleuronectidae (Right-eye Flounder)
Scientific Name: Platichthys flesus (Linnaeus)
Common Name: EUROPEAN FLOUNDER

Description

General Description: Asymmetrical--both eyes on the right side of the head; left side unpigmented.
Specific Description: Long dorsal and anal fins.

Distribution

Distribution: Occurs naturally in the northeast Atlantic to the Black Sea. Introduced into the Great Lakes in ballast water in the 1970s, but probably did not reproduce--only a few specimens were collected.

Ecology

Ecology: Benthic in the Great Lakes. Feed on benthos.

Family Description

New Family Filename: /f/fish5ic/family/flounder.htm

Related Material

Technical Details

Collection: University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Fish Species Descriptions
Record: 212
Link to this Item: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fish5ic/x-212/212

Rights and Permissions

These materials are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license. This means you are free to share and adapt the digital objects for any non-commercial purpose, so long as you give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. The license does not in any way limit your rights under copyright law, such as fair use. Please read the license before using this work. If you use materials from this collection, please use the following attribution and copyright notice: "©2019 Regents of the University of Michigan. This work was created by the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology Fish Division. It is licensed under the CC-BY-NC 4.0 license." If you have questions about the collection, please contact the UMMZ Fish Division. If you have concerns about the inclusion of an item in this collection, please contact Library Information Technology.

Cite this Item

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Full citation: "Platichthys flesus (Linnaeus); EUROPEAN FLOUNDER." In the digital collection University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Fish Species Descriptions. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fish5ic/x-212/212. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 11, 2025.