51813_Sturgeon biodioversity an.PDF

triangular-shaped gill rakers, so it clearly was not

specialized for filter feeding.

The large, piscivorous Chinese paddlefish,Pse-

phurus gladius,is restricted to the Yangtze River

(Figure 7). Described asPolyodon gladiusby Mar-

tens (1862), it was transferred to the new genusPse-

phurusby Günther (1873) because of its moderate

number of comparatively shorter gill rakers and its

smaller number of large caudal fulcra. Relatively

few papers focus on Psephurus(Handyside 1875a,b,

Nichols 1928, 1943, Tatarko1936, 1939,MacAlpin

1947, Vasetskiy 1971, Liu & Zeng 1988, Yu et al.

1986, Grande &Bemis1991, Liu et al. 1995). Al-

though it probably never reached the 7 meters total

length commonly cited for this species,Psephurus

reached at least 4 meters (Grande & Bemis 1991).

does have a paddle-shaped rostrum and the large
jaws characteristic of other paddlefishes and Lu
(1994) reports (but does not illustrate) the presence
of stellatebones inthis material. This placement
seems reasonable, but more study of this material is
needed.
†Paleopsephurus wilsoniMacAlpin 1941a from
the late Cretaceous Hell Creek formation of Mon-
tana is the only species of the genus. It is known
from a single partial skull and caudal fin (MacAlpin
1941b, 1947). Further preparation of the remaining
material revealed important new details, such as the
presence of stellate bones in the paddle, which had
been overlooked or misinterpreted by MacAlpin
(see Grande & Bemis 1991). This species has short,

Table 5.Species and geographic ranges of some fossil and all recent Acipenseridae, Bonaparte 1831. Additional fossil species are listed in

Wilimovsky (1956).

HusoBrandt 1869 - Eurasia

H. huso (Linnaeus 1758)

H.dauricus(Georgi 1775)

AcipenserLinnaeus 1758 - Holarctic

A.oxyrinchusMitchill 1815

A.brevirostrumLe Sueur 1818

A.fulvescensRafinesque 1817

A.sturioLinnaeus 1758

A.naccariiBonaparte 1836

A.stellatusPallas 1771

A.gueldenstaedtiiBrandt & Ratzeberg 1833

A.persicusBorodin 1897

A.nudiventrisLovetzky 1828

A. ruthenus Linnaeus 1758

A. baeriiBrandt 1869

A.schrenckiiBrandt 1869

A.dabryanusDuméril 1868 China

A. sinensis Gray 1834

A.medirostrisAyres 1854

A.transmontanusRichardson 1836

†A.albertensisLambe 1902

†A.toliapicusAgassiz 1844

†A. ornatusLeidy 1873

ScaphirhynchusHeckel 1836 - North America

S.platorynchus(Rafinesque 1820)

S.suttkusiWilliams & Clemmer 1991

S.albus(Forbes & Richardson 1905)

†ProtoscaphirhynchusWilimovsky 1956 - Montana

†P. squamosusWilimovsky 1956

PseudoscaphirhynchusNikolskii 1900 - Aral Sea drainages

P. kaufmanni(Bogdanow 1874)

P.hermanni(Severtzoff in Kessler 1877)

P.fedtshenkoi(Kessler 1872)

Black, Caspian, Mediterranean seas

Amur River drainage

North America - Atlantic coast

North America – Atlantic coast

North America – central United States

Europe- Atlantic coast, Mediterranean Sea

Adriatic Sea

Black, Caspian, Mediterranean seas

Black, Caspian seas

Black, Caspian seas

Black, Caspian, Aral seas

Rivers of east-central Europe

Rivers of north coast of Russia

Amur River drainage, Sea of Okhotsk

China, south Japan

North America, Asia - Pacific coast

North America -Pacific coast

Upper Cretaceous -Alberta

Lower Eocene - England

Miocene- Virginia

Mississippi River drainage

Mobile Bay drainage

Mississippi River drainage

Upper Cretaceous -Montana

Syr-Darya River

Syr-Darya River

Amu-Darya River