The Peacock flounder comes with an unfavorable Latin name. The common name sounds great, the Latin name also, but if I got it right Bothus mancus translates to something like crippled bottom dweller. I find it interesting how different languages have similar roots for animals, thinking of Bot or Bott, and Butt like Heilbutt. And furthermore mancus is the root for the German word Manko, what means flaw or error. For Japanese speakers manko seems to have a much spicier meaning. Sorry guys, language! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyways the Peacock flounder is a lefteye flounder of the family Bothidae, and there it is with another 160 species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s a beautiful fish, roughly the size of a shoe. Blue circles lead also to the name Flowery flounder. Peacock though seems a bit enthusiastic, the flounders I saw in the Maldives were rather hard to spot in the sand. Usually your only chance to find one is when it moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there lies an interesting fact already. Flounders begin their life as normal, symmetrical, swimming fish. Only at the size of a few centimeters the body transforms into the flat fish. Since there are two possible sides, you would wonder to which side they ‘fall’. The answer is either or. And because that is a remarkable difference, flounders are separated into those with the left side up (family Bothidae or lefteye founders) and those with the right side up (family Pleuronectidae). One impressive righteye flounder is the gigantic Atlantic Halibut. There wouldn’t be such an easy seperation in nature, right? The three species in the genus Psettodes can be either left eyed or right eyed. Google it, you’ll see both variations in one picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suborder Pleuronectoidei (flatfishes) contains another 14 families with over 800 species total. Since many species are consumed, there are lots of weird common names around, like Hogchoker, Megrim, Turbot, Whiff, Dab and Brill. I tried to figure out how many of the 800 species are right and left. Let’s count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Left eyed are the families Bothidae with 160 species, Citharoides 16 species, Scophthalmidae 8 species, Cyclopsettidae 45, Grammatobothus 3, Monolene 11, Taeniopsettidae 9, Paralichthyidae 110, Achiropsettidae 4, Tongue fish 140. That makes 504 species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Right eyed are Pleuronectidae 62, Paralichthyidae 110, Oncopteridae 1, Rhombosoleidae 19, Achiridae 35, Samaridae 29, Poecilopsettidae 21, Soleidae 180, makes 457 species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Und 3 species of Psettodidae can be both. Polynemidae are 40 species of regular shaped swimming fish. Both eyed. So I have 1004 species, no guarantee here as usual, I’m doing this for fun only…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If these last two families would decide to lay down on the right side, the suborder of flat fishes would be balanced almost perfectly, but so the left eyed are 47 species ahead. Of course these numbers are not 100% accurate, and taxonomic studies change the system regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there’s this. Flat fishes are amongst the few marine fishes that form natural hybrids. One species, Inopsetta ischyra, the mighty flat fish, is actually not a real species, but a hybrid of the English sole (right eyed) and the Starry flounder, which is right eyed but can also be left eyed. Aarghh!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet, a French naturalist, described the Peacock flounder in 1782, at the age of 21. He didn’t just describe the one fish, he described 1200 species, which came from Sir Joseph Banks. Banks was on the First voyage of James Cook from 1768 to 1771. While those excursions added tredemnous value to our understanding of nature, they must also have been a gigantic hunt and kill event.
Troubled by the French Revolution (1789 – 1799), Broussonet suffered two strokes and died actually exactly my age, 45.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And now we draw a huge circle back from the French Revolution to the flat fishes, suborder Pleuronectoidei! Righty tighty, lefty loosy tells us which way to turn screws and lids. But I want to link it to the political idea of right and left. Tight as in commitment to tradition and conservatism, and loosy as in less difference in social differences of rich and poor. Little help. The Peacock flounder is sitting diagonal in the center of the photo, facing backwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Peacock flounder comes with an unfavorable Latin name. The common name sounds great, the Latin name also, but if …
And guess where the term of political left and right has its origin. In the French Revolution. OK I don’t want to assume that the flat fishes’ eye side demonstrates their politic ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/picmybug.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot_20251011_164318_com_hihonor_photos_SlotAlbumActivity_edit_441433103514730-1.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&ssl=1\")
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