A fish from dinosaur days

This strange-looking creature is an awesome fish native to the Missouri/Mississippi River basin.

It was once a common fish along these two rivers from Montana to Louisiana. It was placed on the endangered list by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1990.

This is a pallid sturgeon. Fossil evidence shows the pallid sturgeon existed 70 million years ago.

In modern times, man has been very hurtful to the pallid sturgeon by damming and channeling the rivers and tributaries where this fish spawns. Conversely, man also has been able to save this wonderful fish from extinction by building and operating several fish hatcheries for that purpose. Still, the pallid sturgeon is considered imperiled as a wild species, and great effort is being taken to re-establish favorable spawning areas in places such as the Platte River in Nebraska. The pallid sturgeon needs clear running water with gravel bottom to spawn, and when the young are very small they need slower-running, clear to turbid streams in which to survive.

The pallid sturgeon can live to be more than 70 years of age and weigh more than 70 pounds.

I took this photo at the Cape County Conservation Nature Center.