August 15, 2016 — For flatfishes, you’d think things would always be looking up.
These quick-change artists have eyes on top of their heads, yet marvelously mimic the surfaces they sit on. This prompted Clayton Louis Ferrara to ask Weird Animal Question of the Week: “If flatfish have eyes on the top of their heads, how do they see what’s going on on the ocean floor?”
Flatfish, found all over the world, range from the angelfin whiff, which is about three inches (eight centimeters) to the Pacific halibut, which can get up to around nine feet (three meters) long. This fish group includes species familiar to seafood lovers—not only halibut, but flounder, sole, and turbot.
All flatfish have eyes on the end of stalks, so they pop out of the head “kind of like the eyes we saw in cartoons—ba-boing!” says George Burgess of the Florida Museum of Natural History.