Sturgeon

Appears in

#98Mediterranean Seafood
Mediterranean Seafood

By Alan Davidson

Published 1981

  • About

Passing now into the realm of fish with bones, we come first to the order Acipenseriformes and the family Acipenseridae. This is the family of the sturgeon, huge partly armoured fish which present a somewhat prehistoric appearance. This fish is in fact a survivor from the very remote past. Moreover it is equipped inside with a skeleton which is only partly bone, and partly cartilaginous, and not many fish can boast such an unusual arrangement.

But it is neither the antiquity nor the bones of the fish which excite general interest. The sturgeon is famous as the source of caviar, which consists of the eggs carried by the female (as many as two million per fish). Most European sturgeon are anadromous fish, living in the sea but ascending rivers to spawn.