page_title: American paddlefish
section_title: Habitat and distribution
hierarchical_section_title: American paddlefish / Habitat and distribution
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the United States showing distribution of paddlefish
context_page_description: The American paddlefish is a species of basal ray-finned fish closely related to sturgeons in the order Acipenseriformes. Fossil records of paddlefish date back over 125 million years to the Early Cretaceous. The American paddlefish is a smooth-skinned freshwater fish commonly called paddlefish, and is also referred to as Mississippi paddlefish, spoon-billed cat, or spoonbill. It is the only living species in the paddlefish family, Polyodontidae. The other recently-surviving member of this lineage is the now extinct Chinese paddlefish endemic to the Yangtze River basin in China. The American paddlefish is often referred to as a primitive fish or a relict species because it retains some morphological characteristics of its early ancestors, including a skeleton that is almost entirely cartilaginous and a paddle-shaped rostrum that extends nearly one-third their body length. It has been referred to as a freshwater shark because of its heterocercal tail or caudal fin resembling that of sharks. The American paddlefish is a highly derived fish because it has evolved with adaptations such as filter feeding.
context_section_description: American paddlefish are highly mobile and well adapted to living in rivers. They inhabit many types of riverine habitats throughout much of the Mississippi Valley and adjacent Gulf slope drainages.  They occur most frequently in deeper, low current areas such as side channels, oxbows, backwater lakes, bayous, and tailwaters below dams.  They have been observed to move more than 2,000 mi (3,200 km) in a river system.
  American paddlefish are endemic to the Mississippi River Basin, historically occurring from the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers in the northwest to the Ohio and Allegheny rivers of the northeast; the headwaters of the Mississippi River south to its mouth, from the San Jacinto River in the southwest to the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers of the southeast. They were extirpated from New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania, as well as from much of their peripheral range in the Great Lakes region, including Lake Huron and Lake Helen in Canada. In 1991, Pennsylvania implemented a reintroduction program utilizing hatchery-reared American paddlefish in an effort to establish self-sustaining populations in the upper Ohio and lower Allegheny rivers. In 1998, New York initiated a stocking program upstream in the Allegheny Reservoir above Kinzua Dam, and a second stocking in 2006 in Conewango Creek, a relatively unaltered section of their historic range. Reports of free ranging adults captured by gill nets have since been documented in Pennsylvania and New York, but there is no evidence of natural reproduction.  They are currently found in 22 states in the US, and are protected under state and federal laws.  There are 13 states that allow commercial or sport fishing for American paddlefish.
caption: Map of the United States showing distribution of paddlefish
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