Pacific sanddab (Citharichthys sordidus) is a saltwater species recorded in the United States. It is mainly found over sand, mud, at depths of 0–150 m.
Scientific name: Citharichthys sordidus · Water: Saltwater
Size: up to 41 cm
The Pacific sanddab (Citharichthys sordidus) is a small, left-eyed flatfish of the eastern Pacific, by far the commonest of the sanddabs and a species that shares its sandy ground with the longfin and speckled sanddabs; adults are mottled brown on the eyed side over a plain white blind side. It is endemic to the west coast of North America from the Bering Sea to Baja California, living mostly at 50–150 m while juveniles move into shallower water and even tide pools, and it left-eyed larvae drift pelagically for up to 271 days before settling. It is a popular game fish in northern California and is familiar on menus and in markets around Monterey Bay and San Francisco, with Southern California waters spawning from July through September or October, while Puget Sound fish spawn from February to May. American anglers take it by drifting sandy bottoms from boats with small hooks and cut baits or by fishing from piers and breakwaters, and other local names include soft flounder, mottle sanddab and megrim.
It is an opportunistic predator rather than a specialist. Its diet has been recorded to include anchovies, fish eggs, sea squirts, shrimp, crabs and marine worms alongside smaller fish, squid and octopuses. Because it is so abundant it carries real weight in the coastal food web, feeding marine mammals, birds and larger fish, and forming a significant part of the breeding diet of Brandt's cormorant and of the pigeon guillemot, which may be a sanddab specialist. Its own predators include salmon, skates, lingcod, Pacific sablefish and larger flatfish. The body is deep and rounded, with large eyes and large scales, and some fish carry white or orange spots on the eyed side. As the larva matures its right eye migrates over the head to the left side, and the fish shifts from a pelagic to a benthic life as it does so.
Back to home · United States · Species library