A left-eyed flounder covered in blue rings and spots, changing pattern to match the bottom within seconds. The eyes move independently.
To about 46 cm, common at 35. Flat and disc-shaped with both eyes on the left side, grey to brown covered in circles, curved marks and dots of pale blue, the fins finely blue-spotted, and two or three large diffuse blackish spots along the straight part of the lateral line. Males have a strong snout spine and females a bony knob.
The eyed flounder is the pair: it stops at 18 cm and carries pale rings with no blue.
Nought to a hundred metres, usually the top twenty, on clear sand near mangroves, seagrass, coral or rubble. It rests partly buried.
Two things worth knowing. The larva starts symmetrical with an eye on each side and one eye migrates across the head during metamorphosis. And the colour matching is done by sight: a fish that is blinded or has an injured eye cannot camouflage.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
