The species is found on or near the sandy seabed in relatively shallow waters in the western Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

The protractile mouth is large and the male fish has a spine on the snout and a bony lump in front of the lower eye.

[3][4] The eyed flounder is found in the western Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, its range extending from Canada to southern Brazil.

Courtship starts about an hour before sunset, and around the time the sun sets culminates in the female swimming a short way off the bottom with the male immediately below her.

[3] When the larvae hatch from the fertilised eggs, they are pelagic and form part of the plankton in the open water, and their eyes are at first orientated in a normal, symmetrical manner.