Shovelnose sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus) is a freshwater species recorded in the United States.
Scientific name: Scaphirhynchus platorynchus · Water: Freshwater
Size: up to 108 cm
The shovelnose sturgeon is an acipenserid of the bottoms of main channels and embayments in large turbid rivers, often in flowing water over sand mixed with gravel and mud. Its range is the Mississippi River basin from western Pennsylvania to Montana and south to Louisiana, together with the Mobile Bay drainage and the upper Rio Grande in New Mexico. It is a freshwater fish of the Mississippi River basin and neighbouring drainages. It feeds mainly on the larvae of aquatic insects, especially burrowing mayflies, caddis larvae and midge larvae, as well as worms and crustaceans, and it spawns over coarse substrates in fast current. Maximum length is about 108 cm total length, commonly about 72 cm, and it can live 43 years. It is a commercial species and a gamefish. Fishing vulnerability is high to very high at 69 of 100 and resilience very low. IUCN lists it as vulnerable, and it is on CITES Appendix II.
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