FLATHEAD SOLE by

• Main Authors: Flathead Sole Paul, Paul D. Spencer, Gary E. Walters, Thomas K. Wilderbuer
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1999
• Subjects: Bering Sea; Chukchi Sea; Chukchi; Alaska; Aleutian Islands
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.12.3489; http://www.fakr.noaa.gov/npfmc/safes/1999/fhsole.pdf

Introduction The sole is distributed northern California, off Point Reyes, northward along the west coast of North America and throughout Alaska (Hart 1973). In the northern part of its range it overlaps with the related and morphologically similar Bering Flounder (Hippoglossoides whose range extends to the Chukchi Sea and into the western Bering Sea. The two species are very similar morphologically and at-sea identification is extremely difficult on the production schedule of the annual trawl survey. However, we feel there has been increasing accuracy during recent years. The growth and distribution differences between the species were described in Walters and Wilderbuer which illustrated the possible ramifications of combining information. For the purposes of this section, these two species are combined under the heading, Hippoglossoides sp. Hippoglossoides sp. are managed as a unit stock in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands and were formerly a constituent of the "other flaf