Species: Symphurus civitatum, Offshore Tonguefish

Symphurus civitatum Ginsburg, 1951

Offshore Tonguefish

Body highly compressed, elongate, oval, tapers to pointed tail; body relatively deep; head shorter than wide; snout short and blunt; eyes small, close together, lower eye small; no cover over pupils; mouth small, arched (strongly on blind side), at front or a little under snout, reaches under rear of lower eye; eye-side lower jaw with fleshy crest; both jaws on eye side without teeth or with them only on front 1/3; preopercle edge covered with skin; dorsal 86-93 rays, origin over or slightly before top eye; anal 70-78 rays; pectoral fins absent, represented by a fine membrane; only left pelvic fin present, 4 rays, on body midline, joined to anal fin by delicate membrane; dorsal and anal fins confluent with the pointed caudal fin; tail 12 rays; scales rough, on both sides; rays of dorsal and anal usually without scales on blind-side (occasionally 1-3 small scales on ray bases); 66-83 lateral scales; no lateral line.

Top side brown, 6-14 narrow well defined crossbars; inner lining of opercle dark, color showing through operculum as dark blotch; blind side off-white, without dark dots; peritoneum unpigmented; dorsal, anal and tail fins without dark spots or blotches.

Size: 16 cm.

Habitat: silted sandy bottoms.

Depth: 1-73 m, usually 11-45 m.

North Carolina to the Gulf of México.