Hello and happy day, everybody! Today's fish of the day is the Alabama sturgeon!
The Alabama sturgeon, known by scientific name Scaphirhynchus suttkusi is an incredibly endangered sturgeon found in the American South. Found, as the name implies, in the great state of Alabama, this species once had a wide historic range, stretching the entirety of the Mobile basin and bay, from the Alabama, Tombigbee, and Cahaba Rivers, but now has such limited numbers they are listed as wherever found. The Alabama sturgeon is now found only in the lower 130 miles of the Alabama river, living in fast currents of water 6-14 meters of depth nearby rock or mussel beds.
With only 3 confirmed sightings of them since 2009 confirming the species is still extant. With little hope of proving that the Alabama sturgeon continues to live other than the rare sightings, in 2016 researchers turned to another way. Using eDNA, which is usually sheddings, excrement, or other materials left behind in the environment around an animal, they got a positive result determining that the Alabama sturgeon population is still alive, leading to hopes of a captive breeding program. Despite this, there have been no female Alabama sturgeons caught, forcing plans for a breeding program to be entirely paused until they can secure eggs for it.
Regardless of current conservation efforts of the sturgeon, let's discuss other things known about this fish. This sturgeon's diet is made up of plant materials, aquatic bugs, mollusks, and other small bottom dwelling organic matter. Like other sturgeon, the Alabama sturgeon is a bottom feeder with a protrusible mouth, acting as a vacuum. They can get up to a size of 30 inches, relatively small for sturgeons, and are mostly known within the family for their striking orange-yellow color. Their life cycle is nearly identical to that of other sturgeon: sexual maturity occurs at 5-7 years of age, at which point they swim upstream to lay eggs, repeating this every 2-3 years until their lifespan comes to an end around 12-20 years!
That's the Alabama sturgeon, everybody! Have a wonderful day!
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