With 17 living species (others are only known from fossil remains), it is the largest genus in the order Acipenseriformes.

They are native to freshwater and estuarine systems of Eurasia and North America, and most species are threatened.

[2] Several species also known to enter near-shore marine environments in the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans.

In fact, the fossils of two species (A. praeparatorum and A. amnisinferos) are known from mass mortality assemblages immediately following the Chicxulub impact, the beginning of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.

This order Acipenseriformes (Sturgeon and Paddlefish) related article is a stub.