The first sturgeon appeared around two hundred million years ago, an era when the seas around Pangea teemed with ammonites and the ground shook from the footsteps of 80-ton dinosaurs. When the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, the great fish survived. Some scientists call the sturgeon a living fossil. There are historical accounts of sturgeon as long as 16 feet and weighing half a ton. The fish do not grow that big anymore, not because they have changed but because the world has.
