- About
- With 500+ faculty, staff and students and three campus locations, the Batten School & VIMS are equipped to tackle pressing challenges through research, education and advisory service.
  Learn More
- Research & Advisory
- Purple marsh crabs are significantly disrupting carbon cycling in salt marshes along the East Coast of the U.S., according to a study led by Batten School & VIMS scientists.
  Learn More
- Batten School
- The R. Todd Stravitz Scholars Program will provide full tuition support for students pursuing the new bachelor’s degree in coastal & marine sciences at the Batten School & VIMS.
  
  Read More
- Engage
- Popular, free camps enable rising third through eighth graders to learn about the Chesapeake Bay, coastal ecosystems and environmental stewardship.
  
  Read More
- News & Events
- National TRAP Program funds large-scale cleanup of discarded fishing gear, first round of subawards totaling more than $1.4M supports 11 projects focused on removing derelict fishing gear from coastal waters in nine U.S. states and Palau.
  
  Learn More
- Giving
- As an expression of parental pride in their daughter, Taylor Spencer ‘83 and Martha Spencer recently established an undergraduate field research endowment at the Batten School & VIMS.
  
  Read More

Yellowtail flounder

Limanda ferruginea

Information and species illustrations courtesy of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Species Information
Size Males, average length 15¾ inches, maximum 11¾ inches to 18¾ inches; females, average length 18 inches, maximum 15½ inches to 21¾ inches.
Diagnostic characters
Habitat, biology, and fisheries Inhabits sandy and muddy bottoms in deeper water, 5-7 fathoms and no deeper than 50-60 fathoms. They tolerate temperature from a maximum of about 52°-54° to a minimum of about 33°-36°. And some of them are exposed to still lower temperatures on the Grand Banks, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The eggs of the yellowtail, measuring 0.87 mm. to 0.94 in diameter, are buoyant, without oil globule, spherical, very transparent, and with a narrow perivitelline space. The early larval stages of yellowtails and of winter flounders resemble one another closely; but the number of fin rays usually places the larvae in one species or the other after these appear. And the yellowtail does not swim to the bottom until at least 14 mm, whereas the winter flounder completes its metamorphosis when it is only 8 to 9 mm. Diet consists mainly of smaller crustaceans such as amphipods, shrimps, mysids, and the smaller shellfish, both gastropods and bivalves, and worms. It is also known to eat small fish. The yellowtail is one of the most valuable of the flatfishes caught within the Gulf of Maine. It compares favorably in quality with the summer flounder and the winter flounder, but because its body is thinner it brings a lower price to the fishermen. Yellowtails live too deep to be of any interest to anglers.
Distribution North American continental waters, from the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Labrador side of the Strait of Belle Isle, northern Newfoundland, and the Newfoundland Banks, southward to the lower part of Chesapeake Bay. It is most plentiful on the western half of Georges Bank; in the western side of the inner parts of the Gulf of Maine; on the Nantucket grounds; and off southern New England.
Citations Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 1: Introduction, molluscs, crustaceans, hagfishes, sharks, batoid fishes, and chimaeras. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 1-600. Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 2: Bony fishes part 1 (Acipenseridae to Grammatidae). FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 601-1374. Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 3: Bony fishes part 2 (Opistognathidae to Molidae), sea turtles and marine mammals. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 1375-2127.