Sturgeon

Sturgeons are armored fish whose basic design dates back 200 million years. They retain ancestral features lost in most modern fish: bony plates (scutes) instead of scales, cartilaginous skeleton like sharks, and a heterocercal tail. Beluga sturgeon - source of the most prized caviar - can live over 100 years and reach 20 feet long. But this longevity comes with extreme reproductive delay: females don't mature until 15-20 years old.

The sturgeon's life history represents a bet on stability. By delaying reproduction for decades, sturgeons gamble that conditions will remain suitable long enough for offspring to mature and continue the cycle. This worked for 200 million years when environmental change was slow. But modern fishing pressure and dam construction have collapsed sturgeon populations - the delayed reproduction that enabled longevity-based survival now prevents population recovery.

For business, sturgeons illustrate how strategies optimized for stable environments fail catastrophically under rapid change. Business models requiring decades to reach profitability (long-term infrastructure investments, multi-generational brands) exhibit sturgeon dynamics. They work beautifully when conditions remain stable but cannot adapt when disruption accelerates. The sturgeon's 200 million year success followed by 50 years of near-extinction warns that historical durability doesn't guarantee future survival when the rate of environmental change increases.