Once prolific, this olive-brown fish is now greatly depleted. Adults live in Atlantic Ocean but run from ocean to fresh water to spawn. Spawning occurs in May and June.
Species feeds on the bottom taking mainly small mollusks, small fish, and worms.
Females grow to 12 feet, while the males grow to 7 feet. The sturgeon dates as far back as the Cretaceous period 150 million years ago. Sturgeon swim low along the river bottom, their hanging whiskers looking for food, sturgeon suck up benthic molluscs, worm, gastropods, and other inhabitants of sediment. During spring and summer in the Chesapeake, these bottom habitats that are often lacking in oxygen, making it very hard for the sturgeon to find food. If they aren't netted by commercial and recreational fishermen before maturity, females are often harvested at first maturity for their valuable roe.