
Sturgeons and Paddlefishes
Acipenseriformes
Acipenseriformes is an order of basal ray-finned fishes that includes living and fossil sturgeons and paddlefishes (Acipenseroidei), as well as the extinct families Chondrosteidae and Peipiaosteidae. They are the second earliest diverging group of living ray-finned fish after the bichirs. Despite being early diverging, they are highly derived (modified from their ancestors), having only weakly ossified skeletons that are mostly made of cartilage, and in modern representatives highly modified skulls.
3 branches of this order, most-observed first · about 28 known species

Sturgeons
familyAcipenseridae

Paddlefishes
familyPolyodontidae

Huso × Polyodon
genushybridHuso × Polyodon
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Acipenseriformes in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 49824.