The ancient Greek terms for "sturgeon" are chiefly oxirighos and also antakeos, elops, etelis and mirsini, the Latin ones ac(c)ipenser, attilus, sturio, all representing Acipenser sturio, Acipenser huso, etc. The main name oxirighos survives in mod. Greek xirihi (from Koine "oxirighin"). What makes this fish important is both its flesh, of some of its species very tasty, and more so its fish roe, of which the international delicacy called caviar is made. The consensus is that caviar has been known not just since recent centuries but since antiquity. The eggs of the fish, oa tarihon, gave the term ootarihon, Pontic ovotarihon, votarihon, hence in the West butarigus (1320), botargo,etc. The explanation of botargo from Arabic batarih, butarih "fish roe", although given as a real fact in dozens of etymological dictionaries, is rejected as erroneous because it ignores the true story of the word and also the matter of fishing and the industrial conserving and diffusion of the product through Byzantium and its capital, Constantinople, in the Mediterranean and in Western Europe.
Από τους ιχθείς ευγενέστατη εθεωρείτο ο οξύρυγχος απαντών εις ελληνικές και παραπλήσιες θάλασσες και υπό άλλα ονόματα: αντακαίος, έλοψ, ετελίς, μυρσίνη. Εις την λατινικήν ο ίδιος ιχθύς ήταν γνωστός ως accipenser (ακκιπήσιος), attilus, sturio, όρος ο οποίος εισήλθε και εις τη νέαν ελληνικήν ως στουριώνι, στεριώνι, στριώνι. Ο οξύρυγχος ζει στο Βόρειο ημισφαίριο μεταξύ της Β. Αμερικής και της Κίνας: την Ισλανδίαν, την Αδριατικήν, του Εύξεινου Πόντου, την Κασπίαν και του ποταμού Amur της Κίνας. Υπάρχουν είκοσι είδη οξυρύγχου.
