- is primarily found in the Caspian and Black Sea basins, and occasionally in the Adriatic Sea. Heavily fished for the female's valuable roe—known as beluga or black and most valuable caviar— the beluga is a huge and late-maturing fish that can live for 118 years. It is also considered to be the most ancient out of all fish species (if you see the fish in nature you will definitely notice that it looks like it saw the dinosaurs, it has that pre-historical appearance...). The largest generally accepted record is of a female taken in 1827 in the Volga river estuary at 1,571 kg and 7.2 m. These great sizes mark the beluga as the largest freshwater fish in the world.
I had a chance to buy some nice small two pieces of this fish recently - the fish we did not see on our table for the last 22 years now since we left Russian shores. It was cooked for the whole family the old traditional way... more photos:
http://bohemianrhapsodyclub.weebly.com/cooking.html