Atlantic sturgeon

Language English

Onglets

Description

Distinguishing features

The Atlantic sturgeon has a long, pointed, upturned snout, with four barbels in front of the mouth, on the underside. It has five rows of bony plates on the back and sides. The dorsal lobe of its caudal fin is longer than the ventral lobe. The skeleton of this bony fish is largely cartilaginous.

Reproduction

The fish spawns in pools at the foot of rapids and waterfalls, in fresh water. It is an anadromous species, which returns to salt water after spawning. The female lays a huge number of eggs, from 800,000 to 2,400,000. Its ovaries may account for as much as one-third of its body weight.

Diet

Atlantic sturgeon feed on molluscs, worms, shrimp and other shellfish, and on fish such as sand lances. They root for food on the bottom with their toothless ventral mouths, using their barbels equipped with taste buds, and their pointed snouts.

Predators

The Atlantic Sturgeon don't have many known naturals predators. Sometime lamprey eel, a blood eating fish, fixe themself in large numbers on the body of an Atlantic sturgeon. This might be sufficient to kill the unfortunate victim.

Habitat

They are bottom-dwellers and bottom-feeders. Atlantic sturgeon spend their adult life in salt water, along the Atlantic coast, and in the St. Lawrence Estuary and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Ecology, behaviour

The Atlantic sturgeon is an anadromous fish, which spawns in rivers. The young remain in fresh water for four years before migrating to the sea. It seems that its former spawning grounds on the St. Lawrence have not been used since the 1950s or 1960, perhaps because of the damming of some rivers, overfishing, the dredging of the Seaway and the construction work for Expo 67.

French name

Esturgeon noir

Scientific name

Acipenser oxyrinchus

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Osteichthyes (bony fish)

Order

Acipenseriformes

Family

Acipenseridae

Size

Length: generally up to 3 m; maximum length: 4.3 m

Weight

150 to 200 kg; maximum: 368 kg

Life span

60 years or more

Status

Low risk / new threatened (Cites 1996); Near threatened (IUCN - 2006), Likely to be designated (MRNF, MDDEP).

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