Paddlefish are one of the most interesting and unusual fish found in the Mississippi River system and in Wisconsin. They are closely related to the sturgeon and are threatened in the state of Wisconsin. Here are some more interesting facts about these weird creatures:

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• Paddlefish have several nicknames including: spoonbill catfish, spoonbill sturgeon, or shovelnose catfish.

• These names come from the paddlefish’s identifying feature – its long, flat rostrum. The rostrum is a blade- or spoon-like snout that kind of looks like a kitchen spatula.

• The paddlefish has what's called a cartilaginous skeleton. There are no
bones in the body except for its jawbone. The rest of the semi-hard places
in the body are made of cartilage - like our noses and ears.

• There are no scales on a paddlefish’s body; it’s covered with a smooth, tough skin.

• They can be up to 87 inches long (that’s about 7 feet 3 inches) and weigh as much as 200 pounds, but the average paddlefish weighs about 15-20 pounds.

• Paddlefish are also known as “freshwater whales” because they filter feed like most whales. They swim near the surface of the water, open their mouths wide, and use their gill rakers to filter out tiny plankton (microscopic plant and animal life).

• The bottom of the rostrum is covered with sense receptors kind of like taste buds and help the paddlefish find places where plankton are most abundant.

• Because they must swim through debris to filter out their food, they have small eyes and long gill covers that come to a point to protect their lungs from the sediments stirred up in the waters.

• Coming to the top mostly just to feed, they live mostly in slow-moving river waters that are more than four feet deep.

• Paddlefish have even outlived the dinosaurs. Paddlefish like we know them now have been around for 300 million years and are the oldest surviving animal species in North America.

• They were first discovered in America in the 1500s by the Mississippi River explorer Hernando De Soto.

• The American paddlefish has only one other relative in the world, another paddlefish that lives in China and can grow to over 20 feet long!

• Paddlefish are threatened in some states, so they cannot be fished for in the state of Wisconsin and any other in which they are protected. Some states still do allow fishing for paddlefish, but have very strict laws to keep their numbers up.

• Paddlefish are prized for their roe, which is made into caviar. Most of the Sturgeon Roe Caviar sold in the US is actually paddlefish roe.

•The paddlefish's scientific name is polydon spathula. Polydon is Greek for"many teeth" and refers to the gill rakers, even though paddlefish have no teeth at all. The word spathula is Latin for "spatula" or "blade."