But today it is among the rarest of North American fish. The Alabama sturgeon is long and slender, growing to about 30 inches in length, and is a golden - yellow color. A mature fish weighs 2-3 pounds. The head is broad and flattened, shovel-like at the snout.
Bony plates cover the head, back and sides.
The body narrows abruptly to the rear to form a narrow stalk between body and tail. The upper lobe of the tail fin is elongated and ends in a long filament. Within the Mobile River system, the Alabama sturgeon inhabited the Black Warrior, Tombigbee, Alabama, Coosa, Tallapoosa, Mobile, Tensaw, and Cahaba rivers, as well as stretches of the Tombigbee River in Mississippi. It has disappeared, however, from approximately 85 percent of its historic range in the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers and their major tributaries in Mississippi and Alabama. Since 1985, all confirmed captures have been restricted to a short, free-flowing reach of the Alabama River in Clarke, Monroe, and Wilcox Counties, Alabama.