Author: Natalia Przelomska, Research Associate in Archaeogenomics, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

Sturgeons are one of the oldest groups of fishes. Sporting an armor of five rows of bony, modified scales called dermal scutes and a sharklike tail fin, this group of several-hundred-pound beasts has survived for approximately 160 million years. Because their physical appearance has changed very little over time, supported by a slow rate of evolution, sturgeon have been called living fossils. Despite their survival through several geological time periods, many present-day sturgeon species are at threat of extinction, with 17 of 27 species listed as “critically endangered.” Conservation practitioners such as the Virginia Commonwealth University monitoring team are working…