The small plain left-eyed flounders of deep sand, seldom more than a hand's length.
Small left-eyed flounders, both eyes on the upper side and the underside blank white, rarely exceeding about 12 cm and never approaching the size of the larger flounders on the same ground. The upper surface is plain sandy grey to fawn with fine dark speckling and usually a pair of dark blotches on the tail fin, and the pattern shifts to match whatever the fish is lying on. Males have the eyes set further apart than females and carry a small spine on the snout in front of the upper eye.
They lie on open sand, often well down a slope, and bury by shivering the fin margins until only the eyes stand clear. A disturbed fish glides a few metres just above the bottom, settles and buries again, and the second approach is generally closer than the first because the fish has already committed to the new position. Feeding is on small crustaceans and worms taken from the surface of the sediment.
Several species occur together and are separated on head and fin ray characters that a photograph will not settle, so records here are kept at the genus. Recorded across the Indo-Pacific, mostly deeper than about 5 m and commonly to 50 m and beyond. On a muck dive they are among the animals most often swum over, because a 10 cm plain flatfish on plain sand gives a diver nothing to stop for.
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.
