This photograph of a sturgeon has been making the rounds on Facebook lately, freaking people out because they couldn’t figure out what it was.
It has come to my attention that many people find this picture scary - but I actually think sturgeon are big squishy babies? I mean
look
at their faces
HOW CAN YOU SAY NO TO THAT? And their mouths:
Sturgeon are actually bottom-feeders! They don’t even have teeth.
But I really can see why people are creeped out by them! They look like dinosaurs. And they kind of are, in a way - they’re a relic of a bygone era, dating back over 208 million years ago to the Triassic era.
The sad thing about this, though, is that since sturgeon grow so large, live so long, and have been living on our planet for so many years, they reproduce very, very slowly. Over the years, this has led to the decline of sturgeon populations, with some subspecies - like the kaluga - becoming critically endangered.
Maybe it’s because I saw them on River Monsters (one of my favorite wildlife shows! Seriously, go check it out), but I’ve always had a massive soft spot for sturgeon. The only dangerous thing about them is that they sometimes breach out of the water, and this tendency has sometimes led to the deaths of boaters because they’re so massive.
(Side note: I saw a sturgeon while I was at the aquarium portion of the Biodome, and it was SO CUTE AND IT WAS SO BIG AND I LOVED IT AND I JUST SPENT LIKE 45 MINUTES WATCHING IT SWIM AROUND.)
Also, here’s a babby sturgeon because they are very cute and very smol.
I freaking love sturgeons! In Burlington VT at the lake aquarium thing I can’t remember the name of they had a tank of sturgeons and I spent probably a good 15 minutes watching them swim around until we had to leave. They are so awesome and likely the source of the Lake Champlain monster myth.
There’s a show on Netflix about ice fishing for these guys
Tim Carpenter, a staff biologist at the Seattle Aquarium, says that
“in three to four years, giant Pacific octopuses can reach 100 pounds.”
“They have incredible capacity to grow very, very quickly: they can put on the pounds much more quickly than most other animals in the natural world. So they need a lot of food. Whatever they can get their tentacles on.”
