Critically Endangered
Amu Darya sturgeon
Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni
Amu Darya sturgeon is a ray-finned fish in the family Acipenseridae (order Acipenseriformes) — Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The species occurs in two morphs: a relatively large, light-coloured and late maturing morph, and a small, dark-coloured and early maturing morph.
The Amu Darya sturgeon is a small sturgeon, but the largest species of Pseudoscaphirhynchus, reaching up to 2 kg (4.4 lb) in weight and 75 cm (30 in) in total length, excluding tail filament.
Range and habitat
It is found in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and perhaps Afghanistan. It inhabits quite shallow flowing waters that are turbid and muddy.
A part of its range is in the Amudarya State Nature Reserve.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The Amu Darya sturgeon feeds on small fish and aquatic insect larvae, with large individuals being mostly piscivorous. The breeding season is from March to May when the water is 14 to 16 °C (57 to 61 °F).
In crisis
It has declined because of habitat loss, pollution and poaching, and is rated as critically endangered by the IUCN. This restricts international trade in the species, but two were legally exported from Uzbekistan to Russia for zoological purposes in 2002–2012, and in 2013 Uzbekistan set the export quota to twenty individuals. Many sturgeon species have been bred in captivity and this often forms the basis for restocking the wild populations.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Amu Darya sturgeon is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Amu Darya sturgeon, Wikidata item Q1507886. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
