Amudarya pseudoshovelfish: “Alien fish” from the muddy waters of Asia. Soon the species will really leave the Earth - it will disappear along with the river where it lives (8 photos)

There is a belief: if a woman dreams of the Amu Darya false pathologist, this promises an early pregnancy. And if you catch it, dry it and eat it in real life, you can safely go shopping at Detsky Mir. True, this method is definitely not suitable for particularly impressionable ladies - the appearance of this character is extremely specific.





In general, sturgeon, which our friend belongs to, are non-trivial fish in themselves. But the false pathologist managed to stand out even among its fellows. They don't take size - the fish grow to only 75 centimeters in length and weigh about 2 kilograms. Compared to the 7-meter belugas, the pseudoshovelfish are just fry. But you don’t have to be a giant to be remembered: a large flat muzzle, a bunch of spines all over your body and a pale transparent color are enough.



Why lie? Their nose really is like a shovel! The fact is that in America, in the Mississippi River, there are very similar fish. They were discovered and described earlier than our Amu Darya friend. And when it came under the radar of scientists, the latter decided to call it a false pathologist, so as not to get confused, because the relatives of the fish are very, very distant from each other.





Above is an American white shovelnose. Below is our hero, the Amu Darya false pathologist.

The similar appearance of two different sturgeons is the result of convergent evolution, because false and common shovelnose sturgeons lead a similar lifestyle. Both prefer running waters with sandy, clayey and rocky bottoms. Visibility in such locations is almost zero. Therefore, fish simply swallow everything that comes to them with the current. Why do they need a shovel? Go for potatoes? Alas, scientists cannot yet say anything precise about such a remarkable unit. It is believed that this shape helps the fish stay afloat at the very bottom with minimal effort.



But the Amu Darya false pathologist has one more remarkable feature, in addition to the muzzle of the face - this is its tail. Among all sturgeons, only this species has a long tail thread. Its length can be almost the size of the fish itself! This process spreads across the water and detects vibrations. With its fifth point, the false pathologist senses all those who are trying to sneak up on it from behind unnoticed. It’s very convenient when you want to escape a predator in time. Or someone who wants to catch you in order to have a child.



Of course, neither meat nor fish entrails have anything to do with childbirth - this is just a belief of local peoples. Previously, false pathos were considered mythical creatures; they appeared in legends and tales. Then people began to see fish as a valuable commercial item: they were actively caught and eaten. In those days, the place of residence of the false pathos, the Amudarya River, was full-flowing: there were no dams or reservoirs on it - almost all the water flowed into the Aral Sea.



But with the development of civilization, everything changed. Since the 1920s, people began to actively use the waters of the Amu Darya for irrigating land - there is no way to grow crops without irrigation in this area. By 1960, about 1 million hectares of crops were irrigated with water from the river, and in 2000 this figure quadrupled. As a result, the Aral Sea has almost dried up - in dry years the Amu Darya does not reach it at all, but simply dries up halfway.



All that remains is to splash around in basins...

The river dried up and the fish died. Two other species of pseudopathogens - small and Syrdarya - were last caught back in the shaggy 90s. So scientists consider them almost extinct. Naturally, with such a population level, there is no question of commercial fishing. Now a small population of large pseudopathogens lives in the Vakhsh and the middle reaches of the Amu Darya, the fish does not migrate - and there is nowhere to go.

To date, all attempts to restore the population of pseudopathos in the Amu Darya have failed.

Firstly, pseudoshovellings mature late - by the age of 7 years. The time for love begins for fish in April, when the water temperature reaches 14-16⁰C. During the period, the female brings from 3 to 36 thousand eggs, but only a few of them will survive. Babies are abandoned to their fate even before they are born.



Each egg is worth its weight in gold. Therefore, they are collected artificially in order to raise fry with greater success.

Secondly, in captivity, fish are in no hurry to make children, they are too whimsical to environmental conditions. And thirdly, even if you get a brood of pseudopathos in an aquarium, there is almost no place to release it: introducing fish to other regions of the river also did not produce results. Pseudopathos are losing competition to other fish: loaches, barbels, catfish.

So we are on a direct path to the fact that the once revered numerous commercial fish will disappear from the face of the earth, like other species of the Amu Darya inhabitants.