Common Sole
Solea solea
Cape Scaldfish
Arnoglossus capensis
About
The Cape scaldfish is a small flatfish of soft ground, and it spends its life lying on one side. It lives from just under the surface down to about 200 metres, on bottoms of mud, sand and broken shell. Look for it where the seabed is bare and level, not on reef. It grows to about 20 cm.
Also known as: cape flounder, sole
- Length
- 20 cm
- Depth
- up to 200 m
How to tell it apart
Flatfish on sand all look alike from above, and the split is which side the eyes sit on. Scaldfishes are lefteye flounders: with the fish flat on the bottom and its head pointing away from you, the eyes are on the left. Soles and right-eyed flounders in the same habitat fail that test.
Appearance
A thin, oval flatfish with both eyes on the same side of the head. The upward-facing side carries small, faint dark spots and marks, which also run onto the head, the pelvic fins and the long fins along the top and bottom edges of the body. The underside, which rests on the seabed, has no such marks. Maximum length is 20 cm.
Log it in Into the Blue
Describe what you saw and we name it, then keep every species you find in your Oceandex.
