This flounder has a flat, compressed body that can grow up to 50 cm, although it commonly reaches 20-25 cm. Both eyes are on the right of the body and behind them or at the beginning of the lateral line there are one or two bony tubercles, while a row of small, sharp tubercles lies along the base of the dorsal and anal fins. It is dark greenish-brown in colour on the eye side, while the opposite, blind side is whitish, sometimes with brown patches. This carnivorous species feeds on small benthic invertebrates, lives on shallow muddy and sandy bottoms and is common in the Adriatic. In the summer it likes to move to brackish waters around the lagoons. It reproduces in the sea during the winter (the female is able to produce over a million eggs) and in the Gulf of Trieste it appears between December and February. The flounder is captured using special gillnets known as “passelere”. Since this is a seabed-dwelling species, it can also be caught with trawl nets. The most flavourful flounders are caught in summer in lagoons and shallow waters, while a typical speciality sold by fishmongers in Trieste are “passere coi ovi” (flounder with eggs) and “latesioi”, mature males regularly appearing on slabs in late November. The taxonomy used to distinguish between two subspecies: Platichthys flesus flesus (italicus), considered to be endemic to the Upper Adriatic, and Platichthys flesus luscus.