Amu Darya Sturgeon
Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanniPseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni, commonly known as either the Amu Darya sturgeon or the false shovelnose sturgeon, is native to the Amu Darya river basin in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The Amu Darya sturgeon grows around 30 inches long excluding its ribbon-like tail filament, which adds around another 10 inches to its total length when included. This sturgeon is not noteworthy for its large size, like some of its lengthier cousins. Instead, you'll find yourself mesmerized by this sturgeon's scintillating scutes! There are two beautiful morphs of this species: a large morph with pearlescent white coloring, streaked with pale blues and purples, and a smaller, more quickly maturing morph with a darker coloration. This sturgeon prefers shallow, muddy, slow-rolling waters. The Amu Darya sturgeon is critically endangered due to habitat loss, overfishing, pollution, and poaching.
Sometimes it makes me sad that the scientific name for Pseudoscaphirhynchids is what it is. Pseudoscaphirhynchus literally means "false spade snout". To me, that implies that pseudoscaphirhynchids are a fake (or at least secondary) iteration of scaphirhynchids. And I suppose it makes sense when you think of who was naming these fish, where the fish are, and when they were named -- Scaphirhynchids (Heckel, 1835) are North American and pseudoscaphirhynchids (Nikolskii, 1900) are Middle Eastern/ Central Asian. I understand why they named it that, but I wish they had their own distinct name. They once had the name Kessleria but there's a genus of moths also called Kessleria so I guess that's not really a viable option. I think something like Armiscorpus (armor body) would be cool to acknowledge their particularly prominent scutes; or maybe Aralichthys (Aral fish) to honor the Aral Sea system they call home (or once called home, since they've been mostly extirpated and are on the verge of extinction).
"Live Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni" by Bakhiyor Sheraliev (creative commons)
