Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron&Julie
But Jim, halibut can be either right-eyed or left-eyed.
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Yes that is true. I read a study about it once where they calculated the numbers, the percentages of eye side aberrations per flatfish.
It's really kinda interesting. Flatfish when young have their eyes on either side of the head like normal fish but over time one eye migrates over to the other side so that both eyes end up on the same side of the head by the time the become adults. Different genus of flatfish have their eyes move to different sides, but in almost all have a predominant side, which is why they are classified as one family or the other.
California halibut are in the family Bothidae (Left-eyed flounders) and the majority of them do have both eyes on the left side of their heads as adults, but something like 39% of them end up with their eyes on the wrong side. That's actually a really high rate of aberration and not that common for flatfish.
For example Pacific Halibut are from the family Pleuronectidae (Right-eyed flounders) and the majority of them have their eyes on the right side:
They have caught left eye'd Pacific Halibut but they are extremely rare only something like less then 1 in 10,000 end up with their eyes on the left side.
I'm not sure what the aberration rate is for sandabs but I know they are from family Bothidae (Left-eyed flounders) and if I remember correctly the aberration rate for them is very low, so almost all of them you catch local are left eyed.
That said nothing is written in stone for instance with Starry Flounder almost 100% of them caught off Japan are right eyed, in Alaska 30% of them have eyes on the left and off California it's 50/50 with almost equal numbers having their eyes on the left or right.
Jim