Red: Pseudoscaphirhynchus hermanni Yellow: Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni(overlapping range) Pseudoscaphirhynchus is a genus of relatively small, highly threatened sturgeons that are restricted to the Aral Sea system (although extirpated from the Aral Sea itself), including the Amu Darya and Syr Darya river basins, in Central Asia.

[3][4] P. fedtschenkoi is restricted to Syr Darya, but has not been seen in decades and it is possibly extinct.

The largest species, P. kaufmanni, reaches up to 75 cm (30 in) in total length (excluding tail filament), while the smallest, P. hermanni, only reaches 27.5 cm (10.8 in), making it the smallest member of the sturgeon family.

Little is known about the behavior of Pseudoscaphirhynchus, but they mainly feed on the bottom on small fish and aquatic insect larvae.

[9][10][11] Although Pseudoscaphirhynchus and Scaphirhynchus traditionally are placed together in the subfamily Scaphirhynchinae based on their similar morphology, several genetic and karyotypic studies have shown that this grouping is polyphyletic.