Scophthalmus maximus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Scophthalmus maximus (Linnaeus, 1758) View in CoL – Turbot ( Fig. 3 View Figure 3 )

Material observed. – Two unsexed individuals. Both sighted off Puerto del Carmen, Tías, eastern coast of the island of Lanzarote. The larger specimen (about 35 cm TL) was photographed by the third author on a sandy bottom at 12 m depth at 28°55’9.3”N 13°40’13.7”W, 26 Jun. 2021, 19:00 (at sunset). The smallest specimen (about 30 cm TL) was recently observed by another diver on a sandy clearing surrounded by rocks at 5 m depth at 28°55’9.1”N 13°40’10.1”W, 6 May 2023, 21:30 (nocturnal), about 50 m away from the previous one GoogleMaps .

Maximum published size, 100 cm TL ( Nielsen, 1986) and 25 kg ( Frimodt, 1995); common length up to 50-70 cm TL ( Muus and Dahlstrøm, 1989; Frimodt, 1995; Munroe and Chanet, 2016). The individuals observed therefore correspond to adult or subadult specimens.

Remarks. – It is an eastern Atlantic cold-temperate species, inhabiting on sandy, rocky or mixed substrata in coastal waters, from 1 m to about 70 m ( Muus and Dahlstrøm, 1989; Munroe and

Chanet, 2016). A marine and brackish species. Adult turbots feed primarily on other bottom-living fishes including gobies, sand eels, herrings, young soles, and occasionally consuming decapod crustaceans and bivalve molluscs ( Munroe and Chanet, 2016; Froese and Pauly, 2023). For more information on biological, ecological and fisheries data on this species, see Munroe and Chanet (2016) and Froese and Pauly (2023). Distribution: Eastern Atlantic; from coastal waters of Norway above Arctic Circle (about 70°N) and Iceland, most of Baltic Sea, along western European coasts including Great Britain and western Ireland, south to off Cape Bojador, Western Sahara (26°N); also, throughout the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Azov Sea. A single capture from Caspian Sea ( Munroe and Chanet, 2016; Froese and Pauly, 2023).