The Kamchatka flounder, ''Atheresthes evermanni'', is a flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae. It is a demersal fish that lives at depths of between and . Its native habitat is the

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout ...

waters of the northern

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

. It can grow as long as in length, and can weigh up to .

Range

The native habitat of the Kamchatka flounder ranges from the

Shelikof Strait Shelikof Strait (russian: Пролив Шелихова) is a strait on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Alaska between the Alaska mainland to the west and Kodiak and Afognak islands to the east. Shelikof Strait separates the mainland ...

and the

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a chain of 14 large v ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

, across the Bering Sea, to the

Gulf of Anadyr The Gulf of Anadyr, or Anadyr Bay (russian: Анадырский залив), is a large bay on the Bering Sea in far northeast Siberia. It has a total surface area of Location The bay is roughly rectangular and opens to the southeast. The corn ...

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and w ...

and the seas of

Okhotsk Okhotsk ( rus, Охотск, p=ɐˈxotsk) is an urban locality (a work settlement) and the administrative center of Okhotsky District of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located at the mouth of the Okhota River on the Sea of Okhotsk. Population: ...

and Japan. In the east of its range the Kamchatka flounder overlaps with the range of the

arrowtooth flounder The arrowtooth flounder (''Atheresthes stomas'') is a fish in the family Pleuronectidae. It can be caught from the Bering Sea to Santa Rosa Island, California. At present, it is the most common fish in the Gulf of Alaska. Data is insufficient ...

, and similarities in appearance between the two

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 ...

mean that they were not distinguished in

commercial fishing Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for commercial profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often ...

until 2007.

Diet

The Kamchatka flounder's diet consists of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

and

zoobenthos Benthos (), also known as benthon, is the community of organisms that live on, in, or near the bottom of a sea, river, lake, or stream, also known as the benthic zone.squid, cuttlefish, shrimps,

prawn Prawn is a common name for small aquatic crustaceans with an exoskeleton and ten legs (which is a member of the order decapoda), some of which can be eaten. The term "prawn"Mortenson, Philip B (2010''This is not a weasel: a close look at nature' ...

s, amphipods,

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 ...

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

s and

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, though the most important prey item is the

walleye pollock The Alaska pollock or walleye pollock (''Gadus chalcogrammus'') is a marine fish species of the cod genus ''Gadus'' and family Gadidae. It is a semi-pelagic schooling fish widely distributed in the North Pacific, with largest concentrations fo ...

, which accounted for 56-86% of stomach contents by weight in one study.

Predators

Kamchatka flounder have been found in the stomachs of only 17 different species of fish in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, including

Pacific cod The Pacific cod (''Gadus macrocephalus)'' is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Gadidae. It is a bottom-dwelling fish found in the northern Pacific Ocean, mainly on the continental shelf and upper slopes, to depths of about . It can gro ...

Pacific halibut The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

pollock Pollock or pollack (pronounced ) is the common name used for either of the two species of North Atlantic marine fish in the genus ''Pollachius''. '' Pollachius pollachius'' is referred to as pollock in North America, Ireland and the United Kingd ...

and sculpin.

Commercial fishing

A market has developed for Kamchatka flounder and as such it is targeted by the

industry. Catches have risen from 1,183 tons in 2007 to 19,662 tons in 2010 (prior to 2007 Kamchatcka flounder was not differentiated from the arrowtooth flounder catch; it is estimated that around 10% of the arrowtooth flounder catch was Kamchatka flounder). Total biomass was estimated at 128,800 tons in 2010.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:flounder, Kamchatka Kamchatka flounder Kamchatka Peninsula Kamchatka flounder