The yellowtail flounder (''Limanda ferruginea''), also known as the rusty dab, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

flatfish A flatfish is a member of the Ray-finned fish, ray-finned demersal fish order (biology), order Pleuronectiformes, also called the Heterosomata, sometimes classified as a suborder of Perciformes. In many species, both eyes lie on one side of the ...

in the family

Pleuronectidae Pleuronectidae, also known as righteye flounders, are a family of flounders. They are called "righteye flounders" because most species lie on the sea bottom on their left sides, with both eyes on their right sides. The Paralichthyidae are the op ...

(righteye

flounder Flounders are a group of flatfish species. They are demersal fish, found at the bottom of oceans around the world; some species will also enter estuaries. Taxonomy The name "flounder" is used for several only distantly related species, thou ...

s). Reaching in length, it has reddish brown upperparts, pale underparts and yellow fins. Both its eyes are on the right (upper) side of its body. Found in the western

North Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and ...

, it has been fished commercially by North American fisheries for food. A victim of overfishing, the yellowtail flounder is categorized as "Vulnerable" by the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

Taxonomy

The yellowtail flounder was originally described by German naturalist

Carl Moritz Gottsche Carl Moritz Gottsche (3 July 1808 – 28 September 1892) was a German physician and bryologist born in Altona. He was the father of geologist Carl Christian Gottsche (1859-1909). Gottsche was a leading authority of Hepaticae. With Christian Go ...

as ''Limanda vulgaris'' in the ''

Archiv für Naturgeschichte ''Archiv für Naturgeschichte'' was a German-language journal for natural history. It was founded by A. F. A. Wiegmann in 1835. The journal was published in Berlin from 1835 to 1926. There were 92 published volumes. From 1912 to 1926 each volume w ...

'' in 1835. It was later documented as ''Platessa ferruginea'' by

David Humphreys Storer David Humphreys Storer (March 26, 1804—September 10, 1891) was an American physician and naturalist. He served as dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard Medical School from 1855–1864, and published on the reptiles and fishes of New Englan ...

in 1839, who noted the similarity between it and ''

Limanda limanda The common dab (''Limanda limanda'') is an edible flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae. It is a demersal fish native to shallow seas around Northern Europe, in particular the North Sea, where it lives on sandy bottoms down to depths of about . I ...

'' (then considered to be in the genus ''

Pleuronectes ''Pleuronectes'' is a genus of righteye flounders found in the northern oceans. Species There are currently three recognized species in this genus: * '' Pleuronectes platessa'' Linnaeus, 1758 (European plaice) * '' Pleuronectes putnami'' ( T. N ...

''). He gave the species the common name of "rusty dab". Later, both ''P. limanda'' and ''P. ferruginea'' were reclassified into the genus '' Limanda''. Meanwhile, American zoologist

Theodore Gill Theodore Nicholas Gill (March 21, 1837 – September 25, 1914) was an American ichthyologist, mammalogist, malacologist and librarian. Career Born and educated in New York City under private tutors, Gill early showed interest in natural histor ...

had placed it in the new genus '' Myzopsetta'' in 1861. According to 1996 research from the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottawa ...

, ''L. ferruginea'' shares several morphologies with ''

Limanda aspera The yellowfin sole (''Limanda aspera'') is a flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae. It is a demersal fish that lives on soft, sandy bottoms at depths of up to , though it is most commonly found at depths of around . Its native habitat is the tempe ...

'', but that the

monophyly In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic grou ...

of the genus ''Limanda'' as a whole is unlikely. A 2018

cladistic Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...

morphological and genetic analysis found that the genus ''Limanda'' is not monophyletic; ''L. ferruginea'' and its relatives the longhead dab (''L. proboscidea'') and speckled flounder (''L. punctatissima'') are in a different

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...

to the other members of the genus and should be (once again) placed in the genus ''Myzopsetta''.

Description

The yellowtail flounder is a wide

with an ovoid body, about half as broad as it is long. The name "yellowtail" comes from the distinctly yellowish color of its

fins A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foils that produce lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while traveling in water, air, or other fluids. Fin ...

(including tail fin); the fish's upper side is reddish brown with irregular "rusty" spots, while the underside is white with a yellow

caudal peduncle Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

(area between body and tail). Being a right-eyed flounder (of the family

), both its eyes are on the right side of the fish's body, though the eyes are symmetrical just after hatching. It is thinner than other flatfish. The fish's head is approximately a quarter as long as the total body and is scaly. The eye's diameter is approximately one fifth the length of the head. The yellowtail flounder has a prominent lower jaw with broad lips, about as long as the eye. The scales are ciliated (having hair-like protrusions) and appear on the head as well. The teeth are small. Its

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through conv ...

, comprising about 80

rays Ray may refer to: Fish * Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea * Ray (fish fin anatomy), a bony or horny spine on a fin Science and mathematics * Ray (geometry), half of a line proceeding from an initial point * Ray (gra ...

, begins over the eye and has longer rays near the middle. The

anal fin Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as se ...

has a similar outline, but is only composed of about 60 rays. Relative to other flounders in the

Gulf of Maine The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America. It is bounded by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and by Cape Sable Island at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northeast ...

, the yellowtail flounder has a narrower and more concave head, with a pointier snout. According to the

National Marine Fisheries Service The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), informally known as NOAA Fisheries, is a United States federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that is responsible for the stew ...

(NMFS), yellowtail flounders can grow to a length of , weighing up to . Specimens up to have been caught before.

Distribution and habitat

The yellowtail flounder is found in the western

North Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

, off the east coast of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Specimens have been found as far north as

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

and southern

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

and as far south as

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...

. It is common on the

Scotian Shelf The Scotian Shelf is a geological formation, part of the Continental shelf, located southwest of Nova Scotia, Canada. It covers an area of , is long and ranges in width from . It has an average depth of . The Scotian Shelf contains the ecological ...

, on

ocean bank An ocean bank, sometimes referred to as a fishing bank or simply bank, is a part of the seabed that is shallow compared to its surrounding area, such as a shoal or the top of an seamount, underwater hill. Somewhat like continental margin, conti ...

s such as the

Grand Banks of Newfoundland The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a series of underwater plateaus south-east of the island of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. The Grand Banks are one of the world's richest fishing grounds, supporting Atlantic cod, swordf ...

and

Georges Bank Georges Bank (formerly known as St. Georges Bank) is a large elevated area of the sea floor between Cape Cod, Massachusetts (United States), and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia (Canada). It separates the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic Ocean. Th ...

. Three

fish stocks Fish stocks are subpopulations of a particular species of fish, for which intrinsic parameters (growth, recruitment, mortality and fishing mortality) are traditionally regarded as the significant factors determining the stock's population dyna ...

exist in US waters: in the

area, on Georges Bank, and off southern

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

and the Mid-Atlantic. In Canada, yellowtail are concentrated in NAFO divisions 4X (Browns Bank, near Georges Bank, at ), 4W (

Sable Island Sable Island (french: île de Sable, literally "island of sand") is a small Canadian island situated southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and about southeast of the closest point of mainland Nova Scotia in the North Atlantic Ocean. The island i ...

Bank, ), and 4V (Banquereau, ). The larvae of ''L. ferruginea'' remain near the surface for two months, but after maturing to a length of at least , they dwell on sandy or muddy seafloors at a depth between . As they live considerably deeper than other species of flounder, they are rarely seen along shores.

Ecology

Yellowtail flounders have been reported to live up to seventeen years, but most die by age seven. They mature relatively early with females being able to reproduce by age three,

spawning Spawn is the eggs and sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, and the act of both sexes is called spawning. Most aquatic animals, except for aquati ...

in the spring and summer. The

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

(measuring approximately in diameter) float to the surface and drift for approximately two months. The early larval stages closely resemble that of the

winter flounder The winter flounder (''Pseudopleuronectes americanus''), also known as the black back, is a right-eyed ("dextral") flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae. It is native to coastal waters of the western north Atlantic coast, from Labrador, Canada to ...

, though the appearance of the fin rays differentiates them. They eat

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s (including

amphipod Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 9,900 amphipod species so far descr ...

shrimp Shrimp are crustaceans (a form of shellfish) with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are refer ...

mysid Mysida is an order of small, shrimp-like crustaceans in the malacostracan superorder Peracarida. Their common name opossum shrimps stems from the presence of a brood pouch or "marsupium" in females. The fact that the larvae are reared in thi ...

s, and

shellfish Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater envir ...

) as well as

marine worm Any worm that lives in a marine environment is considered a marine worm. Marine worms are found in several different phyla, including the Platyhelminthes, Nematoda, Annelida (segmented worms), Chaetognatha, Hemichordata, and Phoronida. For a ...

s, and are preyed on by other fish such as

spiny dogfish The spiny dogfish (''Squalus acanthias''), spurdog, mud shark, or piked dogfish is one of the best known species of the Squalidae (dogfish) family (biology), family of sharks, which is part of the Squaliformes order. While these common names ma ...

and

skate Skate or Skates may refer to: Fish *Skate (fish), several genera of fish belonging to the family Rajidae * Pygmy skates, several genera of fish belonging to the family Gurgesiellidae * Smooth skates or leg skates, several genera of fish belongin ...

. Yellowtail flounders are able to

camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the ...

, changing the pattern of their skin to mimic the seafloor.

Fishing and conservation

Yellowtail flounders have been commonly fished in

Massachusetts Bay Massachusetts Bay is a bay on the Gulf of Maine that forms part of the central coastline of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Description The bay extends from Cape Ann on the north to Plymouth Harbor on the south, a distance of about . Its ...

and

Cape Cod Bay A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck. History Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon. Th ...

since the 1800s, after

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

and

otter trawl Bottom trawling is trawling (towing a trawl, which is a fishing net) along the seafloor. It is also referred to as "dragging". The scientific community divides bottom trawling into benthic trawling and demersal trawling. Benthic trawling is towin ...

s were introduced to fisheries in the area. In 1908, a total of of yellowtail and winter flounder was caught near

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

, an estimated half of which was yellowtail. In the US, fishing of yellowtail flounder is governed by the NMFS. More than of yellowtail flounder was commercially caught in American waters in 2020 (the vast majority in

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

), valued at over $1 million. In federal waters, there is a minimum allowed size of . Populations of fishable yellowtail flounder have declined from the 1980s into the late 1990s in Canada, especially in divisions 4V and 4W, after which the rate of fishery declined. ''L. ferruginea'' is currently categorized as "Vulnerable" by the

. According to the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universities, flagshi ...

, yellowtail flounder are being overfished, as well as several other species of flounder. According to NMFS, the fishing rate is being reduced at Georges Bank and there are rebuilding plans to increase populations of all three stocks. Yellowtail flounders are fished between late fall and spring, usually with a

trawl net Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different speci ...

gillnet Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is ...

. Hooks are ineffective as their mouths are small.

As food

Yellowtail flounder is sweet and mild, while being a lean source of

B vitamin B vitamins are a class of water-soluble vitamins that play important roles in Cell (biology), cell metabolism and synthesis of red blood cells. Though these vitamins share similar names (B1, B2, B3, etc.), they are chemically distinct compounds th ...

s, including

niacin Niacin, also known as nicotinic acid, is an organic compound and a form of vitamin B3, an essential human nutrient. It can be manufactured by plants and animals from the amino acid tryptophan. Niacin is obtained in the diet from a variet ...

. The texture is delicate and flaky.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:flounder, yellowtail yellowtail flounder Fish of the North Atlantic Fauna of Atlantic Canada Fauna of the Northeastern United States Taxa named by David Humphreys Storer yellowtail flounder Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN