Summer Flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma)
Description
The body is very compressed laterally and the right side is white and eyeless. The left side has both eyes and is olive brown in color with dark and white spots. Flounders, like other fish, hatch with one eye on each side of their head. Movement of the right eye to the left side of the head begins when the fish is a to half-inch in length and is complete when the fish is 3/4 to 1 inch in length. At this same time, the left side develops its dark color and the right side turns white.
Size
Up to 3 feet in length and 20 pounds, but most fish caught are 1 to 5 pounds.
Habitat
This common fish is found on mud, and to a lesser degree, sand bottoms, from shallow, low-salinity estuaries to near shore and shallow offshore waters. Southern flounders commonly enter fresh water and have been found 100 miles up rivers.
Range
Southern flounder are found in rivers and estuaries along the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to northern Florida, and from Tampa Bay, Florida along the Gulf coast into southern Texas. Their distribution is discontinuous around the southern tip of Florida.