Flatfish: 1, Sinistral

Appears in

#98Mediterranean Seafood
Mediterranean Seafood

By Alan Davidson

Published 1981

  • About

Here we pass to the order Pleuronectiformes, which is the order of flatfish. The king of flatfish, the halibut, is not found in the Mediterranean, but sole, turbot, and other good species are. Generally speaking, both British and North American waters offer a range as good as or better than the Mediterranean one. But hideous complications attend any attempt to draw up comparative lists, since American popular nomenclature is differently based (see p. 224).

Flatfish start life upright, but when they are still tiny they turn over on to one side, which then becomes the belly and stays white, or anyway pale. The eye and the nostril on the belly side move up over the head and join the other eye and nostril on what has now become the back of the fish. The mouth changes shape, and the back takes on a colouring which matches the sea bottom and camouflages the fish.