Sturgeons first appeared in the Early Triassic, 230 million years ago, and continue to this day.

Sturgeons were very popular 200 million years ago and are older than dinosaurs. Modern sturgeons are only their offspring, so the Chinese sturgeon is a famous living fossil, which is of great significance to the research of paleontology and geology.

The Chinese sturgeon is an ancient and rare fish unique to my country. As far back as the Zhou Dynasty, more than 1,000 BC, the Chinese sturgeon was called king tuna. Its snout is sharp, its mouth is small and toothless, and its body is oval-cylindrical. There are four tentacles in front of the mouth, which are used to search for invertebrates, small fish and other food on the bottom of the water. The Chinese sturgeon is a large migratory fish. They are like nomadic people, born in rivers and growing in the ocean, where they grow and develop. The maturity period takes about 9-12 years. After they are fully mature, they migrate to shallow sea areas in my country and enter the estuaries, where they are fattened and inhabited. In autumn, they swim upstream of the Yangtze River to the Jinsha River in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River to spawn and reproduce. After the young fish hatch, they follow their parent fish on an expedition and swim toward the estuary and the ocean. The Chinese sturgeon has a long lifespan and can live one to two hundred years. The fish body can be more than 2 meters long, and the female fish weighs about two to three hundred kilograms. The Chinese sturgeon has plump meat and its eggs can be used to make caviar, making it a precious food. Its swim bladder and notochord can be used to make isinglass, so it has been overfished in the past. Many water conservancy projects have also seriously affected the natural resources of this fish due to their neglect of ecological balance. Now, the Chinese sturgeon is in danger of extinction and requires strict protection.

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Chinese sturgeon

Acipenser sinensis; chinese sturgeon

A species of Acipenser in the family Acipenseridae. Also known as sturgeon shark and big shark. It is named after its origin in China. The body length is 1.7 to 3 meters; the weight is 40 to 378 kilograms, and the maximum individual weight is more than 500 kilograms. Body fusiform. The tip of the muzzle is long. Tail crooked. The body has 5 longitudinal bony plate-like large hard scales. Generally, the head and dorsal side of the body are blue-gray or brown, the abdomen is white, each fin is blue-gray, and there is a transition zone under the side plate between the side and abdominal plates.

Distributed in the Pacific Northwest and east of China's Hainan Island to the Yellow and Bohai Sea and other sea areas and freshwater rivers such as the Pearl River, Qiantang River, Yangtze River, and Yellow River. It is a migratory bottom fish. Entering the river from the sea, they like to gather at the mouth of the river. Mature groups spawn in the upper reaches of rivers from October to November in deep pools and rocky accumulations on riverbeds with fast currents. Sexual maturity: 9 to 25 years old. The number of eggs conceived is 475,000 to 1.445 million. The eggs are sedimentary, oval, gray-green, and sticky. Grows faster. They mainly eat animal food and generally stop eating during the spawning period.

This species is an important large-scale economic fish. In recent years, the yield has been significantly reduced, and it has been listed as an endangered species and is in urgent need of protection and artificial breeding.

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Scientific researchers from the Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute developed scientific methods of artificial breeding and began releasing artificially propagated Chinese sturgeon fry for the first time in 1984. It has been 21 years now, *** 4,537,309 Chinese sturgeons were released into the Yangtze River and Pearl River. On April 28, the Ministry of Agriculture and China Three Gorges Corporation held another large-scale water release event.

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Chinese sturgeons are distributed in the coastal areas south of the west coast of the Korean Peninsula and in major rivers, with the Yangtze River producing the most.

Chinese sturgeons of the family Acipensidae are distributed in the Yangtze River, Qiantang River, Minjiang River and Pearl River. White sturgeons are only found in the Yangtze River system