Flatfish: 2, Dextral

The dextral flatfish of commercial and culinary importance in the Mediterranean belong to the families Pleuronectidae and Soleidae.

The first of these families includes the plaice and the flounder. The former, Pleuronectes platessa Linnaeus, the French plie and Italian passera, is not really a Mediterranean fish, although it may be met at the western end and specimens are occasionally taken in Italian waters. I have not listed it separately, but the reader who comes across one will know it at once by the combination of numerous orange or red spots on its back with a generally flounder-like shape. The dabs and lemon sole familiar to the British do not occur at all in the Mediterranean.