Skip to content
A Virtual Museum on the State's Fish Biodiversity

Parophrys vetulus

English Sole
NS G5
Collection Details

Specimens

Photos

There are no photos available for this taxon yet.

Records

Taxonomic Hierarchy

Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes) Pleuronectfiormes (Flatfishes) Pleuronectidae (Righteye Flounders) Parophrys Parophrys vetulus (English 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.) and processed using AI-assisted text extraction. It may contain errors in spelling, punctuation, or formatting. When citing, please reference the original source rather than this page. Learn more about our species accounts.

Characters

Body shape: short and / or deep. Dorsal origin above middle of upper eye. Pectorals inclined to be pointed.

Distribution

Inopsetta ischyra (Jordan & Gilbert 1881): Hybrid with Platichthys stellatus. May be found from the Bering Sea to San Francisco, California, USA.

Habitat Associations

Marine. demersal. depth range 0-550 m.

Biology

Adults inhabit sand and mud bottoms (Ref. 4925). Young occur in intertidal areas. Feed on small crustaceans, marine worms, brittle stars and small mollusks (Ref. 6885). Spawning adults make extensive migrations (Ref. 6885).
Max length: 49.0 cm TL; common length: 33.0 cm TL; max weight: 1500 g; max age: 22 years.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none.
IUCN Red List Status: N.A. (N.A.).

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.
Clemens, W.A. and G.V. Wilby (1961) Fishes of the Pacific coast of Canada. 2nd ed. Fish. Res. Bd. Canada Bull. (68):443 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.
Patzner, R.A. (2008) Reproductive strategies of fish. pp. 311-350. In Rocha, M.J., A. Arukwe and B.G. Kapoor (eds). Fish reproduction: cytology, biology and ecology. Science Publisher, Inc. Oxford. 631 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 Parophrys vetulus

No comments have been posted yet.