Chinese Sturgeon（Acipenser sinensis）

Habitat: Chinese sturgeon is a kind of migration or semi-migration fish that grows up in coastal waters and enters into rivers after sexual maturity.

Feeding habits: It mainly feeds on the larva of insects, mollush, oligochaeta and fishes etc.

Features: The fish is fusiformis-shaped, with long and pear-like rhynchodaenm, the bottom part of which is thick and fat, while sharp-pointed and a bit curling upwards on the tip. The mouth of the fish, stretching out and drawing back freely, is small and growing on the side of its head like a gap. In the middle of its rhynchodaenm, the Chinese sturgeon has two loasomes of the same length in a row. The fish has no scales and has only five rows of hard and vertical bone lamellas. The row grown on its back is the biggest, which looks like the shields of ancient warriors. The fish has a heterocercal tail, which is well developed in the upper part. The Chinese sturgeon is big in size, more often than not, one such fish grows as large as 300-500 kilograms. Chinese sturgeon is no doubt the giant in all fishes. The matured Chinese sturgeons migrate to the upstream of the Jinsha River to spawn in October or November of each year and they spawn in places where the riverbed is steep and there is rushing current. The eggs it spawns are big and demersal, which would stick to the marbles until young sturgeons are hatched. Chinese sturgeon is late in sexual maturity and the period of its maturity usually takes as long as 11 to 14 years. It has about half a million to one million eggs at one time, but only one percent of its offspring could survive because of all reasons. Therefore, Chinese sturgeon becomes even more precious for its sheer scarcity. Chinese sturgeon grows very big and enjoys very long life. Its flesh is fresh and tasty, thus it is regarded as one of the major large-sized economy fish. Particularly, the eggs of the Chinese Sturgeon, after due processing, can become an especially precious food, because of this reason, the resource of Chinese sturgeon has suffered great losses.

Category: Pisces, Acipenseriformes, Acipenseridae

Distribution: it's the acipenseridae that distributes in the farthest South in the world. It is found in the Yangzi River, Zhujiang River, Minjiang River, Qiantangjiang River and the Yellow River. At the present, it is distinct in most rivers and only a certain amount is left in the Yangzi River.

Protection: class I state protection animal and is also listed in Appendix II of IUCH (1996)EN.CITES (1997)