The Wide-Eyed Flounder is a species in the large clade of Percomorpha and thus belongs to the superclass of the bony fish. It is divided into two subspecies: Bothus podas podas and Bothus podas maderensis. Both differ in small things, such as the brightness of the color.
Description
The body of Bothus podas is sand-coloured and may be brighter or darker depending on the substrate. Irregularly spotted patterns can be seen over the entire upper part. Underneath it is. Furthermore, the body of the Wide-Eyed Flounder is flat. Its shape is elongated oval. With a open tail fin, it looks like a shell. The eyes are very wide and the mouth is vertical. In addition, the entire fish is asymmetric. The male’s eyes are farther apart than those of the female.
Bothus podas will have a maximum length of 45cm and a weight of 700g.
Habitat and spread
One finds the Wide-Eyed Flounder exclusively on sandy grounds, down to a depth of 400m.
When diving in the Canaries you can observe it very often.
It is also found in the Mediterranean Sea and is spread in the eastern Atlantic from Angola to Mauritania, Madeira and Cape Verde.
Biology
Bothus podas lives benthic. It usually rests in the sand or floats only a few centimetres above it. If you get too close and it feels threatened, it can disappear without a trace in the sand within a part of a second.
They are loners, even if many of them are found in a place.
The diet of the Wide-Eyed Flounder consists of small fish, crustaceans and invertebrates such as mollusks, polychaetes or echinoderms.
They reach a maximum age of 4 years.
While they spawn in the Mediterranean Sea takes place between May and August, this occurs in the Azores from July to December.