Living Fossil. Well Sort Of

[danielp]

Here in oklahoma we are allowed to fish for paddlefish, Don't know how widespread these fish are, but we can keep one a day here. From what I can find on the net these fish date back to the jurassic period. It sounds like they have pretty much stayed unchanged this whole time. Here is a pic of me holding one I caught and of her holding the same fish.

[Auspex]

Nothing else much like them; I've never seen one in the wild.

[siteseer]

Here in oklahoma we are allowed to fish for paddlefish, Don't know how widespread these fish are, but we can keep one a day here. From what I can find on the net these fish date back to the jurassic period. It sounds like they have pretty much stayed unchanged this whole time. Here is a pic of me holding one I caught and of her holding the same fish.

danielp,

I've seen them from the Green River Formation (Late Early Eocene) of Wyoming though they are rare finds. It is interesting to see a fish from the days of the dinosaurs still making a living in the modern world.

[danielp]

Nothing else much like them; I've never seen one in the wild.

They are around. Caught and released 4 others today too.

[Tony Eaton]

Nice catch Daniel! Those are amazing creatures and taste great too ;-)

Read up on them recently, there are Chinese paddlefish too, and American ones are living in the Danube. Although cartilaginous and looking a bit like goblin sharks, they are not related to sharks or other cartilaginous but rather more closely related to sturgeon. Still odd to me that a fish would evolve to be cartilaginous, but I am guess that there must be some advantages.

[lordpiney]

very cool...and the million dollar question..how do they taste?

[Jesta384]

very cool...and the million dollar question..how do they taste?

ugh! like rock!

[danielp]

As long as you get ALL the red meat out if them they taste just as good as catfish.

[TroyB]

The Spoonbill catfish is different to clean. They don't have any bone, just cartlage. If you hang them up by their bill and cut around the spinal core near the tail leaving the center core in tack, then twist back and forth, the center core will slide out and a brownish liquid will pore out the tail.

This is how to clean them so they taste really good. The meat is similar to fish in the texture (flaky), but tastes like fried pork chops when deep fried. Very good to eat.

I caught a 75 pounder back in my younger years and we have a fish fry that lasted weeks. I used to live in Oklahoma, 30+ years ago.

TroyB.

[MOROPUS]

I`ve heard somewhere (documentary?old book?) that eggs of paddlefish make a good caviar!

[Fossildude19]

They are really cool Very primitive,... ancient looking.

Thanks for showing it to us. I've heard of them, of course, but never seen one in someone's hands before.

I enjoy seeing different things like this!

[Kentuckiana Mike]

Caught one of these on a trot line fishing a long time ago in the Little Blue River in Indiana (tributary of the Ohio River).

There is a paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) display at the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana. They use to have a live fish in the Ohio River fish tank there but I guess it died.

Sorry for the quality of the attached image. Did not have a tripod with me in the low light environment of the visitor center.

[Tony Eaton]

State of OK has a few government "research stations" this time of year at the good fishing sites(during spawn) to collect eggs for sale as cavier. I guess in Europe they farm these fish for cavier. As I recall the meat is very good, but its been awhile.

I guess they manage the fishery well though as the population seems stable. I do worry that the Zebra mussell, Asian carp, and other exotic species that suck up the same plankton might put the hurt on these fish over time.

I still wonder how a sturgeon evolves into a paddlefish. Wonder how much genetic analysis has been done in this area.

[siteseer]

I still wonder how a sturgeon evolves into a paddlefish. Wonder how much genetic analysis has been done in this area.

Sturgeons and paddlefishes belong to separate families within the same order of chondrostean fishes, Acipenseriformes. One did not necessarily evolve from the other (they may have a common ancestor or may have closely-related ancestors) though there is an Early Jurassic form, Chondrosteus, that shares more anatomical features with sturgeons than paddlefishes. However, that fish didn't look much like a sturgeon either (again, it may be a "cousin" to the ancestor of either or both sturgeons and paddlefishes). I would need to research this topic more but the fact that there have been paddlefishes in China and North America may indicate their ancestors were well-distributed before the break-up of Pangaea in the Early Jurassic.

Consider that there were several groups of chondrostean fishes in the Paleozoic Era but nearly all of them had died out by the beginning of the Jurassic. It is unclear from which one the Acipenseriformes evolved. It could be that ancestral group hasn't been discovered yet. By the Late Cretaceous, however, the modern families of sturgeon and paddlefishes had appeared. Fossils of both have been recognized in the hell Creek Formation.

This is an interesting topic (living fossils in general, these fishes in particular) so I hope others have more to add and this thread keeps going.

[danielp]

State of OK has a few government "research stations" this time of year at the good fishing sites(during spawn) to collect eggs for sale as cavier. I guess in Europe they farm these fish for cavier. As I recall the meat is very good, but its been awhile.

I guess they manage the fishery well though as the population seems stable. I do worry that the Zebra mussell, Asian carp, and other exotic species that suck up the same plankton might put the hurt on these fish over time.

I still wonder how a sturgeon evolves into a paddlefish. Wonder how much genetic analysis has been done in this area.

The zaebra mussels are starting to get bad in lake texoma just right above the dam. I hope they don't hurt the fish populations but I don't think they really have any way of getting rid of them once they have became established in a body of water,

[HeritageFossils]

Nice catch!

If anyone catches a coelacanth, let me know!

-YvW

[Oddball]

very cool...and the million dollar question..how do they taste?

As was said, if you get all the red meat and belly meat off of them they'll have a delicate taste. We caught 8 last weekend between 2ft to 4.5ft. Once cleaned, just cut straight through the dorsum side to the ventral side, making steak cuts. We marinade ours overnight in OJ and some wine vinegar to knock down the muddy taste and soften the fat. Then, season with dill, onion, garlic, S&P and grill them slowly the next day over apple wood and charcoal until the fat stops dripping and the meat flakes easily. Yum!!!

[Tony Eaton]

Too bad to hear about Zebra Mussels and Texoma.

Siteseer, thanks for clarifying the details about what is known about paddlefish evolution. I had some big misconceptions.

I've read some more too and realize now that sturgeon are primarily cartilaginous too. Maybe its fair to speculate that the relative of the paddlefish looked more like a sturgeon assuming the paddlefish evolved it's long bill over time, but I guess without more of a fossil record we would not know. Maybe it is possible to do comparative DNA/RNA analysis on the extant Acipenseriformes, i.e the living Sturgeon and paddlish, to determine just how related they really are.

[Oddball]

Taxonomically, sturgeons and paddlefish are of the same order; Chondrostei.