Details
Pleuronectes platessa
The European plaice is a flatfish of northeastern Atlantic sandy bottoms. It lies buried by day and moves at night to feed on small bottom animals.
Map: Ecoregions 2017 © RESOLVE (CC BY 4.0) · Natural Earth (PD)
It lives on sandy and muddy bottoms from shallow coasts to offshore grounds in the Atlantic, the Palearctic. Young fish use mudflats and shallow bays as nurseries.
Length 30-90 cm; weight 400 g-7 kg. Both eyes sit on the right side of the flattened body, and orange spots mark the eyed side. It can adjust color to blend with sand.
Nocturnal and solitary, it often rests buried in sediment by day. It shifts feeding grounds with tides and bottom conditions.
A carnivore, it eats worms, bivalves, and small crustaceans. Prey is taken from the sediment surface or sucked from within it.
Adults broadcast eggs offshore from winter into spring. Larvae begin symmetrical, then one eye migrates as the young fish flattens.
It is listed as Least Concern, though local populations can still be affected by habitat change, collection, or pollution.
