Biologists are hoping new technology will allow them to peer into the homes, and even the sex lives, of a prehistoric, endangered fish.

A sonogram camera, which uses sonic waves to create images of what's underwater, will be put to work among the upper Missouri River system's population of pallid sturgeon next week.

"It brings back real-time images. You actually can see fish swimming," Steve Krentz, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's project leader of the fisheries office in Bismarck, said Thursday. "The camera could be used to observe spawning activity, and it could help identifying specific habitat that these sturgeon are using."

Eric Laux, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Omaha, Neb., office, will collect the images, and the USFWS will provide logistics support, Krentz said.

"We will show him where some fish are, and hopefully he will get to take a picture of a pallid," Krentz added. "He has been working on the lower part of the river, and now he wants to bring it up to the good part of the river." Laux could not be reached Thursday.

Researchers will be able to distinguish pallids from paddlefish and other river dwellers by their shape, Krentz said. Pallids look like swimming dinosaurs because of their shovel-shaped, flat snouts, their bony plates and their long, reptile-like tail.

One answer researchers won't get is a firm count on the number of breeding-age adult pallids in the upper reaches of the MIssouri River, Krentz said. Biologists estimate that number to be around 200 and going down.

Researchers also will use the camera's microphone to try to pick up sounds that pallid sturgeon make.

"It's based on work being done at Auburn (University) that's shown pallids make several different sounds. We're not sure how or why they make sounds. But it may be a tool in the future on learning how the fish congregate," Krentz said.

The technology is in its infancy, especially when compared to pallid sturgeon, which are believed to have evolved about 70 million years ago.

"Like any technology, you have to try it out in a real-world circumstance after it's tried out in labs. Applying it to fisheries science is fairly new," Krentz said.

(Reach outdoor writer Richard Hinton at 250-8256 or richard.hinton@;bismarcktribune.com.)