Caviar off their coasts. Beluga caviar is prized for its soft, extremely large (pea-size) eggs. It can range in color from pale silver-gray to black. It is followed by the small golden sterlet caviar which is rare and was once reserved for Russian, Iranian and Austrian royalty. Next in quality is the medium-sized, light brown to rich brown Ossetra, also known as Russian caviar. Others in the quality ranking are the gray sevruga caviar, the Chinese Kaluga caviar, and the American osetra. The Siberian variety with black beads is similar to sevruga and is popular because of its reduced (5 years)
USS Sterlet (SS-392) gun. On 31 October, she made a night surface attack on a tanker previously damaged by and apparently sank it with a spread of six torpedoes. "Sterlet" then joined "Trigger" in escorting the damaged into Saipan. From there, "Sterlet" put to sea on 10 November with six other submarines in a coordinated attack group. On the night of 15 November, she, "Trigger", and engaged in a gun duel with an enemy sub chaser. "Sterlet" completely depleted her supply of five-inch (127 mm) shells in the battle and was forced to sink the enemy craft with torpedoes early the following morning.