Flatfish

= **Flatfish** = 

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 * Flatfish live in both fresh and salt water; they eat crustaceans, molluscs, fish and other invertebrates relying on their sight or smell to find food. They can grow up to 2.75 metres long, females being larger, and growing faster, than males. They are brown or grey and often speckled, on the upper side of their bodies. **=====

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 *  Flatfish begin life on the surface, when hatched they are just like any other fish, eyes on either side of their head and a horizontal mouth. During the time that they are near the surface, the flatfish tilts either to the left or the right, the eye that is on the underside moves across the fish’s forehead until it is beside the other eye. This causes the fish to become horizontal, the mouth of the fish may also move so that it is in the correct place according to the eyes. **=====

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 * Flatfish have adapted to lie at the oceans botto m on their sides, by doing this they are hidden from predators and also prey. For a normal fish this might be a mighty task, as one of their eyes would always be buried in the sand, would the positive of being more camouflaged and harder to find make up for being **=====

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 *  Fortunately for the Flatfish it has adapted so that it has both eyes on one side of its head, by one migrating to the other side, unlike any other fish. **=====

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 *  Some people believe that the flatfish was an accident. That there was one “freak fish” **=====

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 *  that was born horizontally and it then had many “Freak fish” babies and that is how the flatfish species began. **=====

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 *  Although others believe that there were a number of different stages to the evolution, which involved the eye beginning to move around the forehead and on to the other side of the fish’s face maybe before or after it began to lie on the oceans bottom. **=====

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 *  However it happened the flatfish now has two eyes on one side on the fish’s face. **=====

**Bibliography**

 * =====**The Fresh and Salt Water Fishes of the World **===== || =====**By Edward Migdalsk and George Fichter **===== ||
 * =====**Fish **===== || =====**By Jill Bailey **===== ||


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