Compared to other sturgeons, Pseudoscaphirhynchus are small. 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.[4][9]P. kaufmanni has a long thin tail filament, P. hermanni lacks it, and it can be long or short in P. fedtschenkoi.[9] They have a relatively long, broad and flattened snout, somewhat like Scaphirhynchus of North America. Little is known about the behavior of Pseudoscaphirhynchus, but they mainly feed on the bottom on small fish and aquatic insect larvae.[11]
^Froese, R.; Pauly, D. (2017). "Acipenseridae". FishBase version (02/2017). Retrieved 18 May 2017.
^"Acipenseridae"(PDF). Deeplyfish- fishes of the world. Retrieved 18 May 2017.
^Mitrofanov, I.V.; and N.Sh. Mamilov (2015). Fish diversity and fisheries in the Caspian Sea and Aral–Syr Darya basin in the Republic of Kazakhstan at the beginning of the 21st Century. Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management 18(2): 160–170. doi:10.1080/14634988.2015.1028870
^ abcSalnikov, V.B.; V.J. Birstein; and R.L. Mayden (1996). The contemporary status of the two Amu Darya River shovelnose sturgeons, Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni and P. hermanni. The Sturgeon Quarterly 4(3): 10–14.
^Kovalev, K.V.; D.A. Balashov; A.L. Cherniak; E. B. Lebedeva; E.D. Vasil'eva; and V.P. Vasil'ev (2016). The karyotype of the Amu Darya sturgeon, Pseudoscaphirhynchus kaufmanni (Actinopterygii: Acipenseriformes: Acipenseridae). Acta Ichthyologica Et Piscatoria 44(2): 111-116.
^Birstein, V.J.; J.R. Waldman; and W.E. Bemis, editors (1997). Sturgeon biodiversity and conservation, pp. 146, 381–382. Kluwer Academic Publishing. ISBN0-792-34517-7