Pleuronectidae
Pleuronectidae, also known as righteye flounders, are a family of flounders. They are called "righteye flounders" because most species lie on the sea bottom on their left sides, with both eyes on their right sides. The Paralichthyidae are the opposite, with their eyes on the left side. A small number of species in Pleuronectidae can also have their eyes on the left side, notably the members of the genus Platichthys.

Uncredited · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- PleuronectoideiPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Pleuronectiformes
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Pleuronectiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Pleuronectiformes
Time the record covers
At least 37 million years on record.
The record covers at least 37.71 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 41.03 Mya to 0 Mya.
47 occurrences of Pleuronectidae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
47 occurrencesThese are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
15 formations
- Port Orford Formation7
- Monterey Formation3
- Rifle Butts Formation · Kaierero Group3
- Palos Verdes Sand Formation3
- Timms Point Silt Formation3
- San Pedro Formation2
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The named rock units Pleuronectidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 16 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Pleuronectidae and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Pleuronectidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,562 taxa- Cymatogaster aggregata8 sites
- Microgadus proximus8 sites
- Citharichthys sordidus7 sites
- Glyptocephalus zachirus7 sites
- Merluccius productus7 sites
- Raja7 sites
- Ammodytes hexapterus6 sites
- Citharichthys6 sites
- Parophrys vetulus6 sites
- Seriphus politus6 sites
- Carcharhinus5 sites
- Carcharodon carcharias5 sites
- Citharichthys stigmaeus5 sites
- Engraulis mordax5 sites
- Galeorhinus galeus5 sites
- Genyonemus lineatus5 sites
- Isurus oxyrinchus5 sites
- Leptocottus armatus5 sites
- Porichthys notatus5 sites
- Sebastes (Sebastodes)5 sites
- Teleostei5 sites
- Atheresthes stomias4 sites
- Chilara taylori4 sites
- Cottidae4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 26 sites for Pleuronectidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
27 references- The Marine Fish Fauna of the Middle Pleistocene Port Orford Formation8
- Fish remains, mostly otoliths and teeth, from the Palos Verdes Sand (Late Pleistocene) of California5
- Otoliths and other fish remains from the Timms Point Silt (Early Pleistocene) at San Pedro, California3
- The fish fauna of the Playa Del Rey locality, a southern California marine Pleistocene deposit3
- A Late Pliocene macrofossil fauna of Newport Beach, Orange County, California2
- The marine fish fauna, based primarily on otoliths, of a Lower Pleistocene deposit at San Pedro, California (LACMIP 332, San Pedro Sand)2
- Otoliths and other fish remains from a Long Beach, California, Pliocene deposit2
- Otoliths of Fishes from the Tertiary Formations of New Zealand2
- Fossil Fishes of Diatom Beds of Lompoc, California2
- Humans and marine resource interaction reappraised: Archaeofauna remains during the late Pleistocene and Holocene in Cantabrian Spain1
- Taphonomic and paleoecological analyses (mollusks and fishes) of the Súa Member condensed shelled, upper Onzole Formation (Early Pliocene, Ecuador)1
- Pleistocene fish otoliths from the Mediterranean Basin: a synthesis1
Each of the 47 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 15 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Pleuronectidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Pleuronectidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPleuronectoidei through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.