Orbis acipenserorum ** Mir Osetra ** The Sturgeon World Web Museum ** Die Storwelt

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"I want the people to observe and to learn..."

The Peter Great





Dear Visitor!

Welcome to the «Sturgeon World» Museum!

According to the Greek sources, the museion is a temple of muses, nine Olympic Goddesses, patronesses of arts and sciences.

The first Russian museum, the Cabinet of Curiosities was established in 1704 by the decree of Peter the Great for “precept and knowledge on animate and inanimate nature, on the art of human hands”. Collections of rarities opened for public only in 1714 amazed then both Russians and Europeans. Neglect of own history, experience of predecessors and new informational technologies converted Russia again into an uninvestigated storage of a huge museum. Today, the virtual space does not reflect even a scintilla of wealth of our Motherland, her waters and interior resources, museums and libraries, culture and achievements of mind. Through establishing the museum we hope to collect, systematize, scientifically interprete and popularize data on sturgeons.

There were times when sturgeons were prolific in rivers and lakes, estuaries and seas of the Northern hemisphere. They interested our forefathers whose names sank into oblivion but the works of their hands were saved by rocks in the cold Karelia and sultry Gobustan. The ancestors of the most famous representatives of ichtyofauna appeared in the epoch of dinosaurs and were engraved for us by the Nature. Passing the rooms of our Museum you will see the fish that lived millions of years ago, disappeared by the end of the last century in the Baltic and White seas, Aral sea and Syr-Dariya river as well as those which are still preserved. You will see objects related to sturgeon’s name. Engineers and painters, engravers and taxidermists worked on these objects for years. During decades they were guarded by servants of muses and in years of the war curators protecting the collection of Zoological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR often paid with their lives.

The fundamental basis of the present biology is based on first descriptions. Therefore you will look at the sturgeon world through the eyes of taxonomists. According to the letter of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a species is the only creature of nature – holotype. Its scientific name includes the information on a priority and a last change in its position in taxonomic system. Names of collectors, places of collection or peculiarities of organisms are perpetuated in taxon names. Therefore the fundamental works represent an encyclopedia of knowledge and eternal monument to the science unity. Thus, the rarest Psephurus gladius (Martens, 1862) from the Yangtze River was described by Karl Eduard von Martens, a German zoologist and a member correspondent of the Physical and Mathematical Department of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences since December 7, 1885. His surname and the year of publishing included in brackets indicate that the author referred the Chinese duckbill cat to Polyodontidae (Polyodon La Cepede, 1797) which are better known under the folk name of paddlefish.

The present name of a phylum genus of the Acipenseridae family is known since antiquity, but for Latin people preoccupied with their daily worries “acipenser’ was just “expensive fish”. Acipenser Sturio Linnaeus, 1758: 237, the first among equals in the Old World is usually called strugeon. A reminder of the fact that the founder of scientific taxonomy might take this name from the Old German is kept in one of the colloquial names.

Acipenser ruthenus Linnaeus, 1758: 237, called Russian sturgeon by the prince of botanists will stay forever as a symbol of Russia in «Systema naturae …». Since the XVI century sterlets represented Belozersk and Yaroslavl on the seal of the Moscow state but in scientific taxonomy sub-genus Sterletus appeared together with Accipenser serotinus Rafinesque, 1820 from the North American rivers of Ohio and Kentucky. Acipenser Huso Linnaeus, 1758: 238 (sturgeon pig) is the largest fish in the Danube river, Europe and the Russian Empire known to Karl Linnaeus. And beluga caught by the Volga fishermen was presented to the enlightened world as Acipenser Beluga Forster, 1767.

Acipenser Plecostomus Linnaeus, 1758: 238 – a tiny Indian sturgeon from Surinam was referred to … Siluriformes only in the second half of the XX century, but long before it was known as Hypostomus guacari La Cepиde, 1803.

Sturgeons were repeatedly honored with attention of zoologists. By the will of taxonomists some of them time and again changed their position in the Nature System, the others were consigned to oblivion. But does it matter for the animate Nature? In order to comprehend the essence of laws constituting a basis and governing the Nature we should see those laws in all variety of their developments. Otherwise science will turn into everlasting arguing of blind people about a carpet, columns and a rope after the first touching of an elephant. In order to get a notion of life diversity, boundaries and relations between biological species it is necessary to perceive not only the tiniest details of their morphology and anatomy, ecology and etiology, biochemistry and genome but to penetrate into fields of knowledge not outlined in the most audacious previsions of fantast writers.

This is especially important today when we understand clearly that for self-preservation the human being needs not only full-value food, increasing soil fertility and medicine effectiveness but also clean air, full-flowing rivers and amazing diversity of life. A fundamental importance of taxonomy became evident after sturgeon sub-species from the Azov and Black seas, rivers of Asia and the Gulf of Mexico became elementary units of animate nature protection. Detection and management of the unique sturgeon populations became vital long before that – since the first trials on their artificial breeding at the end of the XIX century. The obvious miscalculations of the wide-scale acclimatization conducted in the last century also confirm the urgency of taxonomic research that for decades was ignored by the Soviet fisheries institutes.

Metric data on two hundred sturgeons which had received their scientific names over a quarter of millennium are concentrated in about 150 works. Some of them are not accessible for not only ordinary but famous researchers. By no means is every taxon, holotype or phylum series described in detail, sketched out or photographed. The true wonders of natural science, with some exceptions, were not saved. Some are lost inadvertently, the others are destroyed by Herostratos-like people without name, kinship and nationality. Therefore, we would like to show you sturgeons which once lived together with diamonds of the first value. Following simple rules you may present to the world famous and unknown treasures of museums, private collections and libraries. After we have concurrently looked in all comers of the Sturgeon World we may hope for the rescue of the regal fish.

Of course, we do not possess the absolute knowledge and do not strive for monopoly on it.

Y ou may not only draw attention of an opponent to his neglect of facts but use them to express your own hypothesis, to become one of the workers or curators of the Sturgeon World Museum. Opinions of its founders and keepers of the collection may not coincide with opinions of our colleagues and partners, grant-providers and sponsors. However, they all should be justified and comply with the International Laws of Naturalists – nomenclature and ethical codes in various fields of knowledge. You have the right to choose among diversity of alternative opinions which we attempt to make accessible to every visitors of the Museum.

Sincerely yours,
Dr. Alexander Kozhara, Borok, Russia
Dr. Anatoly Tarasov, Moscow, Russia


About logotype.
Caspian sturgeons, over and over again, cross the border between Europe and Asia. At the cross of equator and the Greenwich meridian we will be at one time in the Eastern and Western hemisphere, Northern and Southern. On the meridian line of date shifting all of a sudden we will appear both in the past and future.

Points of uncertainties exist not only on geographical maps. On the Museum invitation card you see a sturgeon egg on the spawning substrate. If it is fertilized, then in a moment the future embryo subordinate to laws unknown to us will turn, occupy a certain position and continue development. Non-fertilized by virtue of closely related sciences the egg of assumption will die. Therefore, our notion of sturgeon world will change with accumulation of knowledge. Accordingly, displays will change in the Museum. Some hypotheses will make our descendants smile, the others will be confirmed by facts yet unknown to us.


© 2003 Anatoly Tarasov

English version Elena Yuldasheva

The Sturgeon World Web Museum presents these documents as part of the record of the past. These primary historical documents reflect the attitudes, perspectives, and beliefs of different times. The Sturgeon World Web Museum does not endorse the views expressed in collections, which may contain materials offensive to some readers.