Beluga (Huso huso) is a unique fish that has no equal among freshwater inhabitants. It is the largest representative of sturgeon and can reach up to more than 7 meters long and weigh more than 1.5 tons!
🔹 What is unique about beluga?
✔ Record sizes - it is the largest freshwater fish in the world
✔ Centenarian - can live for more than 100 years
✔ Beluga caviar is the most expensive in the world
✔ Historical Relic - it has existed on the planet for more than 200 million years
✔ Anadromous lifestyle - it lives in the sea, but spawns in rivers
This giant is playing key role in the ecosystems of the Black, Caspian and Azov seas, but unfortunately, it is threatened with extinction through overfishing and poaching.
Scientific classification
🔬 Beluga taxonomy:
✔ The Kingdom: Animals (Animalia)
✔ Type: Chordal (Chordata)
✔ Class: Lucheperi pisces (Actinopterygii)
✔ Row: Sturgeon (Acipenseriformes)
✔ Family: Sturgeon (Acipenseridae)
✔ Gender: Belugas (Huso)
✔ View: Huso huso
📌 Interesting!
Gender Huso includes total two views – beluga (huso huso) and kaluga (Huso dauricus), which lives in the Amur basin.
Description and anatomy
💥 Main characteristics of beluga:
✔ Body length: on average 4-5 m, but record-breaking individuals can reach up to 7.2 m
✔ Weight: 800-1000 kg, and the largest recorded individual weighed 1571 kg
✔ Life span: more than 100 years old
✔ Some individuals spawn only once every 15-20 years!
🔹 Appearance features:
✅ Long torpedo-shaped body - adapted for fast swimming
✅ Broad, flattened head with a large mouth located at the bottom
✅ Antennae in front of the mouth - used to search for food on the bottom
✅ The body is covered not with scales, but with rows of bony scutes (beetle)
✅ The cartilaginous skeleton - makes the body more flexible
📌 Interesting!
Unlike most sturgeons, the beluga – predator. It hunts fish, rather than feeding only on benthic organisms.
Range and habitat
🌍 Where does the beluga live?
✅ The Caspian Sea (largest population)
✅ The Black Sea
✅ The Sea of Azov
✅ Danube, Dnieper, Volga, Don, Ural - rivers where it spawns
🔹 Living environment:
✔ Sea fish, only it climbs rivers to breed
✔ Depths of 50-150 m in the seas, and in rivers choose deep holes with a slow current
✔ It can migrate thousands of kilometers - for example, in the Volga River it went up to Kazan (2000 km)
📌 Interesting!
Beluga it can move from salt water to fresh water and vice versa, so it is called anadromous fish.
Lifestyle and behavior
🔹 Behavior features:
✅ It lives at great depths - mainly in the bottom layers
✅ Hunts at night - a well-developed sense of smell allows you to find prey in the dark
✅ At a young age, it lives in flocks, and adults-singly.
✅ Large individuals can attack ducks and small mammals!
📌 Interesting!
Beluga – the fastest representative of sturgeon: it can accelerate to 40 km / h!
Food and hunting
🔹 What does a beluga eat?
✅ Fish: herring, hamsa, tulka, walleye, carp, mullet
✅ Crustaceans
✅ Shellfish
✅ Young individuals can eat insect larvae
📌 Interesting!
Adult beluga fully carnivorous - unlike other sturgeons, which feed on bottom-dwelling organisms.
Reproduction and life cycle
🔹 Features of spawning:
✔ It reaches sexual maturity at the age of 15-25 years
✔ Females lay up to 7 million eggs!
✔ Spawning occurs on sandy or rocky river bottoms
✔ After spawning, the adults return to the sea
✔ The larvae descend into the sea after a few months
📌 Interesting!
Females spawn once a year. 10-15 years old, to the overfishing significantly affects the population.
Beluga and man
🔹 Why is the beluga threatened?
❌ Poaching-beluga caviar is the most expensive in the world
❌ Pollution of rivers and seas
❌ Construction of dams that prevent migration
❌ Commercial fishing has wiped out most of the population in the past
⚠ Status: Endangered (CR-Endangered)
🔹 Security measures:
✔ Catch ban
✔ Artificial breeding in fish farms
✔ Population recovery programs
📌 Interesting!
Black beluga caviar it is the most expensive in the world - the price can reach up to more than$ 30,000 per 1 kg!
Conclusion
🌊 Beluga-a real giant among freshwater fish.
🏆 It is not only a record holder in size, but also an important element of the ecosystem.
⚠ Unfortunately, due to poaching and destruction of its natural habitat, this unique species is on the verge of extinction.
💡 Preserving the beluga is an important task for humanity, because this fish is a living part of the history of our planet!
🎣 Would you like to see a live beluga in nature? 🤩🐟
