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Sturgeon River State Forest
Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous, and are descended from other, earlier acipenseriform fish, which date back to the Early Jurassic period, some 174 to 201 million years ago. They are one of two living families of the Acipenseriformes alongside paddlefish (Polyodontidae). The family is grouped into four genera: ''Acipenser'' (which is paraphyletic, containing many distantly related sturgeon species), ''Huso'', ''Scaphirhynchus,'' and ''Pseudoscaphirhynchus''. Two species ('' A. naccarii'' and '' A. dabryanus'') may be extinct in the wild, and one ('' P. fedtschenkoi'') may be entirely extinct. Sturgeons are native to subtropical, temperate and sub-Arctic rivers, lakes and coastlines of Eurasia and North America. Sturgeons are long-lived, late-maturing fishes with distinctive characteristics, such as a heterocercal caudal fin similar to those of sharks, and an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Sturgeon
The Atlantic sturgeon (''Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus'') is a member of the family Acipenseridae and along with other sturgeon it is sometimes considered a living fossil. The Atlantic sturgeon is one of two subspecies of '' A. oxyrinchus'', the other being the Gulf sturgeon (''A. o. desotoi''). The main range of the Atlantic sturgeon is in eastern North America, extending from New Brunswick, Canada, to the eastern coast of Florida, United States. A disjunct population occurs in the Baltic region of Europe (today only through a reintroduction project). The Atlantic sturgeon was in great abundance when the first European settlers came to North America, but has since declined due to overfishing, water pollution, and habitat impediments such as dams. It is considered threatened, endangered, and even locally extinct in many of its original habitats. The fish can reach 60 years of age, in length and over in weight. Physical appearance Rather than having true scales, the Atlant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dabry's Sturgeon
Dabry's sturgeon (''Acipenser dabryanus''), also known as the Yangtze sturgeon, Chiangjiang sturgeon and river sturgeon, is a species of fish in the sturgeon family, Acipenseridae.Zhuang, P., et al. (1997)Biology and life history of Dabry's sturgeon, ''Acipenser dabryanus'', in the Yangtze River.''Environmental Biology of Fishes'' 48(1-4), 257-64. It is endemic to China and today restricted to the Yangtze River basin, but was also recorded from the Yellow River basin in the past. It was a food fish of commercial importance. Its populations declined drastically, and since 1988, it was designated an endangered species on the Chinese Red List in Category I and commercial harvest was banned. It has been officially declared extinct in the wild by the IUCN as of July 21, 2022. Appearance This sturgeon has been known to reach in length, but it is usually much smaller.Froese, R. and D. Pauly. (Eds.''Acipenser dabryanus''.FishBase. 2011. Its body is blue-gray above and yellowish white ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estuaries
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environments and are an example of an ecotone. Estuaries are subject both to marine influences such as tides, waves, and the influx of saline water, and to fluvial influences such as flows of freshwater and sediment. The mixing of seawater and freshwater provides high levels of nutrients both in the water column and in sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world. Most existing estuaries formed during the Holocene epoch with the flooding of river-eroded or glacially scoured valleys when the sea level began to rise about 10,000–12,000 years ago. Estuaries are typically classified according to their geomorphological features or to water-circulation patterns. They can have many different names, such as bays, har ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Delta
A river delta is a landform shaped like a triangle, created by deposition (geology), deposition of sediment that is carried by a river and enters slower-moving or stagnant water. This occurs where a river enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, or (more rarely) another river that cannot carry away the supplied sediment. It is so named because its triangle shape resembles the Greek letter Delta. The size and shape of a delta is controlled by the balance between watershed processes that supply sediment, and receiving basin processes that redistribute, sequester, and export that sediment. The size, geometry, and location of the receiving basin also plays an important role in delta evolution. River deltas are important in human civilization, as they are major agricultural production centers and population centers. They can provide Coast, coastline defense and can impact drinking water supply. They are also Ecology, ecologically important, with different species' assemblages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benthos
Benthos (), also known as benthon, is the community of organisms that live on, in, or near the bottom of a sea, river, lake, or stream, also known as the benthic zone.Benthos from the Census of Antarctic Marine Life website This community lives in or near marine or freshwater sedimentary environments, from s along the , out to the , and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anadromous
Fish migration is mass relocation by fish from one area or body of water to another. Many types of fish migrate on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annually or longer, and over distances ranging from a few metres to thousands of kilometres. Such migrations are usually done for better feeding or to reproduce, but in other cases the reasons are unclear. Fish migrations involve movements of schools of fish on a scale and duration larger than those arising during normal daily activities. Some particular types of migration are ''anadromous'', in which adult fish live in the sea and migrate into fresh water to spawn; and ''catadromous'', in which adult fish live in fresh water and migrate into salt water to spawn. Marine forage fish often make large migrations between their spawning, feeding and nursery grounds. Movements are associated with ocean currents and with the availability of food in different areas at different times of year. The migratory movements ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volga Delta
The Volga Delta is the largest river delta in Europe, and occurs where Europe's largest river system, the Volga River, drains into the Caspian Sea in Russia's Astrakhan Oblast, north-east of the republic of Kalmykia. The delta is located in the Caspian Depression—the far eastern part of the delta lies in Kazakhstan. The delta drains into the Caspian approximately downstream from the city of Astrakhan. The Volga Delta has grown significantly in the 20th century because of changes in the level of the Caspian Sea. In 1880, the delta had an area of . Today the Volga Delta covers an area of and is approximately across. It has a classical "delta pattern". The delta lies in the arid climate zone, characterized by very little rainfall. The region receives less than one inch of rainfall in January and in July in normal years. Strong winds often sweep across the delta and form linear dunes. Along the front of the delta, one will find muddy sand shoals, mudflats, and coquina banks. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beluga (sturgeon)
The beluga (), also known as the beluga sturgeon or great sturgeon (''Huso huso''), is a species of anadromous fish in the sturgeon family ( Acipenseridae) of order Acipenseriformes. It is found primarily in the Caspian and Black Sea basins, and formerly in the Adriatic Sea. Based on maximum size, it is the third-most-massive living species of bony fish.Huso huso. Fishbase.org. Accessed on 11 January 2008 Heavily fished for the female's valuable , known as , wild populations have been greatly reduced by [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scutes
A scute or scutum (Latin: ''scutum''; plural: ''scuta'' "shield") is a bony external plate or scale overlaid with horn, as on the shell of a turtle, the skin of crocodilians, and the feet of birds. The term is also used to describe the anterior portion of the mesonotum in insects as well as some arachnids (e.g., the family Ixodidae, the scale ticks). Properties Scutes are similar to scales and serve the same function. Unlike the scales of lizards and snakes, which are formed from the epidermis, scutes are formed in the lower vascular layer of the skin and the epidermal element is only the top surface . Forming in the living dermis, the scutes produce a horny outer layer that is superficially similar to that of scales. Scutes will usually not overlap as snake scales (but see the pangolin). The outer keratin layer is shed piecemeal, and not in one continuous layer of skin as seen in snakes or lizards. The dermal base may contain bone and produce dermal armour. Scutes with a bony ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shark
Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimorpha (or Selachii) and are the sister group to the rays. However, the term "shark" has also been used to refer to all extinct members of Chondrichthyes with a shark-like morphology, such as hybodonts and xenacanths. The oldest modern sharks are known from the Early Jurassic. They range in size from the small dwarf lanternshark (''Etmopterus perryi''), a deep sea species that is only in length, to the whale shark (''Rhincodon typus''), the largest fish in the world, which reaches approximately in length. Sharks are found in all seas and are common to depths up to . They generally do not live in freshwater, although there are a few known exceptions, such as the bull shark and the river shark, which can be found in both seawater and fresh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fish Fin
Fins are distinctive anatomical features composed of bony spines or rays protruding from the body of a fish. They are covered with skin and joined together either in a webbed fashion, as seen in most bony fish, or similar to a flipper, as seen in sharks. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the spine and are supported only by muscles. Their principal function is to help the fish swim. Fins located in different places on the fish serve different purposes such as moving forward, turning, keeping an upright position or stopping. Most fish use fins when swimming, flying fish use pectoral fins for gliding, and frogfish use them for crawling. Fins can also be used for other purposes; male sharks and mosquitofish use a modified fin to deliver sperm, thresher sharks use their caudal fin to stun prey, reef stonefish have spines in their dorsal fins that inject venom, anglerfish use the first spine of their dorsal fin like a fishing rod to lur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. Because it is on the North American Plate, North American Tectonic Plate, Greenland is included as a part of North America geographically. North America covers an area of about , about 16.5% of Earth's land area and about 4.8% of its total surface. North America is the third-largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the list of continents and continental subregions by population, fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 579 million people in List of sovereign states and dependent territories in North America, 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In Americas (terminology)#Human ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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