THE SOLE FAMILY Soleidae

HOGCHOKER Trinectes maculatus (Bloch and Schneider, 1801)

DISTRIBUTION AND ABUNDANCE: Massachusetts is the northern-most part of the range of the hogchoker. In Massachusetts, they are most common in the southeast, where young have been recorded from brackish and freshwaters of almost all the south flowing drainages. This species is rare north of Cape Cod; however, Louis Agassiz procured a number from the mouth of the Charles River in 1874. Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) noted that they had not seen a hogchoker record from north of the Cape since Agassiz's report. In October, 1980, a juvenile was collected in the freshwaters of Rock Creek, Orleans, a tributary to Cape Cod Bay; there are also recent published records of hogchoker from marine waters near the Pilgrim Power Plant, Plymouth.