Age determination in fish fish. Johannes Reibisch, working for the Commission of Scientific Investigation of German Seas at Kiel, attempted to use Hoffbauer’s techniques to age plaice ("Plueronectes platessa") but found it difficult to accurately discern annuli. He decided to study a different structure and in 1899 he published the first procedures using otoliths as an aging structure. A fellow scientist also with the German Commission at Kiel, Friedriche Heincke, also frustrated with difficult scale annuli, further studied other structures to age fish. He discovered annuli in the vertebrae, opercula, and pectoral girdle and published his findings in Heicke 1905. The works of Hoffbauer,
Flatfish flatfish). The primitive spiny turbots include equal numbers of right- and left-sided individuals, and are generally less asymmetrical than the other families. Other distinguishing features of the order are the presence of protrusible eyes, another adaptation to living on the seabed (benthos), and the extension of the dorsal fin onto the head. The surface of the fish facing away from the sea floor is pigmented, often serving to camouflage the fish, but sometimes with striking coloured patterns. Some flatfishes are also able to change their pigmentation to match the background, in a manner similar to some cephalopods. The side of