Sole (fish)

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Sole is a type of flatfish of varying families. Generally speaking, they are the members of the family Soleidae, but, outside Europe, the name 'sole' is also applied to various other similar flatfish, especially other members of the sole suborder Soleoidei as well as members of the flounder family. In European cookery, there are several species which may be considered 'true' soles, but the common or Dover sole Solea solea, often simply called the 'sole', is the most esteemed and most widely available.^{[citation needed]}

The name 'sole' comes from its resemblance to a sandal, Latin solea.^{[citation needed]} In other languages, it is named for the tongue, e.g. German Zunge, Spanish lenguado.

Worldwide, members of several groups of flatfish are called 'soles'. A complete list can be found using Fishbase's search function. They include:

• In the sole suborder Soleoidei:
  • The true soles Soleidae, including the common or Dover sole Solea solea. These are the only fishes called 'soles' in Europe.
  • The American soles Achiridae, sometimes classified among the Soleidae.
  • The tongue soles or tonguesoles Cynoglossidae, whose common names usually include the word 'tongue'.
• Several species of righteye flounder in the family Pleuronectidae, including the lemon sole, the Pacific Dover sole, and the petrale sole.

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Contents 1 Threats 2 See also 3 References 4 Bibliography

[edit] Threats

The True Sole solea solea is sufficiently broadly distributed that it is not considered a threatened species; however, overfishing in Europe has produced severely diminished populations, with declining catches in many regions. For example, the western English Channel and Irish Sea sole fisheries face potential collapse according to data in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.

Sole, along with the other major bottom-feeding fish in the North Sea such as cod, monkfish, and plaice, is listed by the ICES as "outside safe biological limits." Moreover, they are growing less quickly now and are rarely older than six years, although they can reach forty. World stocks of large predatory fish and large ground fish such as sole and flounder were estimated in 2003 to be only about 10% of pre-industrial levels.^[1][2][3] According to the World Wildlife Fund in 2006, "of the nine sole stocks, seven are overfished with the status of the remaining two unknown."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

• Common Sole

[edit] References

1. ^ Clover, Charles. 2004. The End of the Line: How overfishing is changing the world and what we eat. Ebury Press, London. ISBN 0-09-189780-7
2. ^ Myers, Ransom A. and Worm, Boris. "Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities." Nature 423, 280-283 (15 May 2003).
3. ^ Dalton, Rex. 2006. "Save the big fish: Targeting of larger fish makes populations prone to collapse." Published online [1]

[edit] Bibliography

• Alan Davidson, North Atlantic Seafood, 1979. ISBN 0-670-51524-8.
• Alan Davidson, Mediterranean Seafood, 1972. ISBN 1-58008-451-6.