Friday Fish: Acipenser mikadoi

This is the Sakhalin sturgeon, the best picture I could find. The name suggests it's native to the Sakhalin Islands off the east coast of Siberia. It's an endangered species, but more interestingly, it's a sturgeon. Sturgeon are frickin' weird. This species, for example, is most likely octoploid - 8 copies of each chromosome, rather than the more typical 2 in animals. This is based on analyses conducted by Arne Ludgwig and colleagues a few years ago.

Seriously, these fish are wacky in so many ways.

Literature cited:
Ludwig A, Belfiore NM, Pitra C, Svirsky V, Jenneckens I. 2001. Genome duplication events and functional reduction of ploidy levels in sturgeon (Acipenser, Huso and Scaphirhynchus). Genetics 158: 1203-1215.