The olive flounder (
Paralichythys olivaceus), also called bastard halibut or Japanese or Korean flounder, is a left-eyed flatfish of family Paralichthyidae native to the subtropical/temperate western pacific from the Sea of Okhotsk off south eastern Russia, along Japanese shores to the South China Sea. It grows up to about 1 meter long and 10 kg. The adults live in waters 100 m or more deep, and migrate into shallow waters in the spring to spawn. Young flounders eat small invertebrates such as mysids and brine shrimp, mature to about 10 cms long and then move to deeper waters where they begin eating small fish. In the early 1990s, overfishing of this species caused natural populations to precipitously decline; at this point olive flounder became widely cultured in Korea, Japan and China. Olive flounder is now one of the most important marine species cultured in Korea, this country produces 70% of the olive flounder on the world market, mainly in on-land facilities. (
Bai and Okorie 2007;
Fujii and Noguchi 1993;
Korea-US Aquaculture, National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI).;
Wikipedia 2011)
