"short-body" spotted gar

[Lepisosteus platyrhincus]

breeding age yet?

 

[Noddy]

Sweet, the short body makes the snout look HUGE!

 

[Loubard]

Very nice animal. Do you know if this kinda of body deformity will have any affect on it's organs and with that on it's life span?

 

[E_americanus]

Very nice animal. Do you know if this kinda of body deformity will have any affect on it's organs and with that on it's life span?

i doubt it organ-wise, usually the really bad organ deformities presented earlier on in life and those fish did not make it to later stages (we did have some oddities early on). as far as life span, it is also doubtful...mainly because people seldom are able to keep gars in captivity for their full potential lifespan...the oldest spotted gar on record is 18 years, the oldest FL gar i have heard about on these forums or in person was around 12...and that is definitely an outlier with what people are able to keep these days. even my oldest gars are only 5-7 years old.

so in short (no pun intended), i don't know for certain if the deformity will seriously affect the lifespan, but my educated guess would be no, nothing significantly different than what we would see in keeping normal gars in captivity.
the fish currently eats like a monster--
--solomon

 

[E_americanus]

fish is up for sale to further generate funds for the spotted gar project. more info here:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3657634#post3657634

 

[phillydog1958]

E Americanus, what are your credentials and what's the purpose of the experiments? are you a geneticist?

 

[E_americanus]

E Americanus, what are your credentials and what's the purpose of the experiments? are you a geneticist?

there should be numerous threads further elaborating what i do throughout this section of the forum, so i will answer in brief:

i'm currently a phd candidate at the university of michigan in aquatic ecology (resource ecology and management, received my MS there as well). my dissertation focuses on conservation of biodiversity, more specifically population ecology of peripheral vs core populations. the model species for my research is the spotted gar, and although i work with both the adults and juveniles, the "experiments" i am referring to are a series of common garden trials. i am not a geneticist per se, but my research does touch on this area as we are looking at phenotypic expression of a difference in genotype.

this is my dissertation research and will eventually be published, so i won't go into much further detail than that until the work is completed. there are photos of some of our gar-spawning in threads in this forum, feel free to check those out.

hopefully that helps answer your question--
--solomon

 

[phillydog1958]

there should be numerous threads further elaborating what i do throughout this section of the forum, so i will answer in brief:

i'm currently a phd candidate at the university of michigan in aquatic ecology (resource ecology and management, received my MS there as well). my dissertation focuses on conservation of biodiversity, more specifically population ecology of peripheral vs core populations. the model species for my research is the spotted gar, and although i work with both the adults and juveniles, the "experiments" i am referring to are a series of common garden trials. i am not a geneticist per se, but my research does touch on this area as we are looking at phenotypic expression of a difference in genotype.

this is my dissertation research and will eventually be published, so i won't go into much further detail than that until the work is completed. there are photos of some of our gar-spawning in threads in this forum, feel free to check those out.

hopefully that helps answer your question--
--solomon

Great! I saw the "Ann Arbor" on your avatar and assumed you were at Univ of Michigan. I appreciate your work and look forward to updates on your progress. By the way, I'm a serious fan of Mike Fischer and the Fab 5 -- Go Big Blue! Good luck with wrapping up your dissertation and doctorate.

 

[Gr8KarmaSF]

Can you share the age of this fish please? How old?

 

[E_americanus]

Can you share the age of this fish please? How old?

fish is exactly 171 days old.--

--solomon