Microstomus pacificus
Dover Sole
Collection Details
Event Specimens
Photos
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Records
Taxonomic Hierarchy
Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes)
Pleuronectfiormes (Flatfishes)
Pleuronectidae (Righteye Flounders)
Microstomus
Microstomus pacificus (Dover Sole)
Description
This species account was compiled from
FishBase (Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2025. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version 04/2025.)
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Characters
Body shape: short and / or deep. Dorsal origin above middle of upper eye. Caudal imperfectly rounded.
Distribution
Eastern Pacific: Navarin Canyon in the Bering Sea to Stalemate Bank in the Aleutian Islands and San Cristobal Bay, Baja California, Mexico.
Habitat Associations
Marine. demersal. depth range 10-1370 m.
Biology
Adults occur on mud bottom (Ref. 2850). They move into deep water in winter (Ref. 2850). Produce large amounts of slime which may cover other fishes when caught in trawls (Ref. 4925). Marketed as mink food (Ref. 4925) or as fillet (Ref. 2850).
Max length: 76.0 cm TL; common length: 40.0 cm TL; max weight: 3500 g; max age: 56 years.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; mating system: monogamy; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none.
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2020-08-13. Resilience: Low (tm=5; tmax=56; K=0.26; Fec=37,000).
Commercial or Environmental Importance
Fisheries: commercial; gamefish.
References
Breder, C.M. and D.E. Rosen (1966) Modes of reproduction in fishes. T.F.H. Publications, Neptune City, New Jersey. 941 p.
Eschmeyer, W.N., E.S. Herald and H. Hammann (1983) A field guide to Pacific coast fishes of North America. Boston (MA, USA): Houghton Mifflin Company. xii+336 p.
Allen, M.J. and G.B. Smith (1988) Atlas and zoogeography of common fishes in the Bering Sea and northeastern Pacific. NOAA Tech. Rep. NMFS 66, 151 p.
Hart, J.L. (1973) Pacific fishes of Canada. Bull. Fish. Res. Board Can. 180:740 p.
Pearcy, W.G. and D. Hancock (1978) Feeding habits of dover sole, Microstomus pacificus; rex sole, Glyptocephalus zachirus; slender sole, Lyopsetta exilis; and pacific sanddab, Citharichthys sordidus, in a region of diverse sediments and bathymetry off Oregon. Fish. Bull. 76(3):641-651.
Hunter, J.R., B.J. Macewicz, N. Chyan-huei Lo and C.A. Kimbrell (1992) Fecundity, spawning, and maturity of female Dover sole Microstomus pacificus, with an evaluation of assumptions and precision. Fish. Bull. 90:101-128.
Russian Academy of Sciences (2000) Catalog of vertebrates of Kamchatka and adjacent waters. Kamchatsky Pechatny Dvor, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia. 166 p.
Vinnikov, K.A., R.C. Thomson and T.A. Munroe (2018) Revised classification of the righteye flounders (Teleostei: Pleuronectidae) based on multilocus phylogeny with complete taxon sampling. Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 125:147-162. DOI: 10.1016/j.ympev.2018.03.014
Comments On Microstomus pacificus