American plaice

Open encyclopedia reference

The American plaice, American sole or long rough dab (Hippoglossoides platessoides) is a North Atlantic flatfish that belongs, along with other right-eyed flounders, to the family Pleuronectidae. In the northwest Atlantic (H. p. platessoides) it ranges from Greenland and Labrador to Rhode Island, and in the northeast Atlantic (H. p. limandoides) it ranges from Murmansk to the English Channel, Ireland and Iceland, rarely finding itself in the Baltic Sea. They live on soft bottoms at depths of 10 to 3,000 m (33–9,843 ft), but mainly between 90 and 250 m (300–820 ft). In the Gulf of Maine spawning peaks in April and May. They grow to a maximum length of 70 centimetres (28 in). The species is considered by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization to be overfished, with no signs of recovery. Canadian officials dispute this, claiming the population is under less than 20% risk of extinction in the next 80 years however, it remains under the moratorium established in 1993. A 1997 study reports that plaice are endangered in Canada due to overfishing.

Wikipedia contributors, American plaice; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T04:53:32.872110+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Hippoglossoides platessoides (Fabricius, 1780)

Name authority

(Fabricius, 1780)

Common name

American plaice

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Teleostei

Order

Pleuronectiformes

Family

Pleuronectidae

Genus

Hippoglossoides

Extinction status

Not supplied by this source

Source habitat flags: Marine: yes · Freshwater: no · Terrestrial: no. These do not form a complete habitat description.

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
7. gigaclassActinopterygii
8. superclassActinopteri
9. classTeleostei
10. orderPleuronectiformes
11. suborderPleuronectoidei
12. familyPleuronectidae Rafinesque, 1815
13. subfamilyPleuronectinae Rafinesque, 1815
14. genusHippoglossoides Gottsche, 1835
15. speciesHippoglossoides platessoides (Fabricius, 1780)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Hippoglossoides. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 86 records assigned to Pleuronectidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=127137 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:3M25H. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.