It is a demersal fish that lives on sandy bottoms, usually in deep water, down to depths of about 550 metres (1,800 ft).

Its native habitat is the Eastern Pacific, stretching from the coast of Baja California in the south to the Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea in the north.

[2][3] Petrale sole is an important commercial fish, caught all along the West Coast of the United States and Canada and into the Bering Sea, almost exclusively by trawler.

[5] Juvenile petrale sole feed on cumaceans, carideans and amphipods, whilst adults will eat shrimps, crabs, epibenthos organisms and other fish, such as herring, hake, anchovy, pollock and other flatfish.

[3] Petrale sole was declared overfished in 2009 and then rebuilt in 2015 after a period of reduced catches.