WHOS GOT THE LARGEST GAR HERE?

[pagojoe]

Cool Solomon, thanks for posting the pic. I added a big one to the Texas A&M collection last summer, which they preserved whole. They only had skulls and sections of gar in their collection previously, even though they are close to some big gar territory.


Don

 

[E_americanus]

I don't think there is such a thing as a 7ft long nose.

yeah, no 7ft longnose by any means. viewing gars from above while they are in the water (or any fish for that matter) can easily skew their true size, but even then, no 7' longnose...hybrid ALG-LNG maybe, but that's about it (and those only seem to occur in relatively specific localities.)--
--solomon

 

[E_americanus]

Cool Solomon, thanks for posting the pic. I added a big one to the Texas A&M collection last summer, which they preserved whole. They only had skulls and sections of gar in their collection previously, even though they are close to some big gar territory.


Don

very cool Don! yeah, amazing the specimens that the U & other museums have tucked away (and also new fish like yours)! i am definitely planning on going back through some older specimens for various projects we have going (did this with spotted gars back in the day as well).
please do keep us updated on hybrid stuff as we are rolling forward with some of that work on our end too (of course always a balance of time with multiple projects, haha).--
--solomon

 

[pagojoe]

Very nice, I'll be interested in seeing what you guys turn up. It would be fun to know if any of the offspring end up being able to reproduce. While the hybrids are rare, there is a rarer form that looks to be almost perfectly intermediate between the Croc III and true A. spatula Morphologically, it would be easy to guess it to be (A.s x A.s) X (A.s x L.o). An 80 pound Croc III is a big one, these others grow to at least 150.



Don

 

[pagojoe]

Since this has kind of become the de facto big gar thread, I'll go ahead and temporarily hijack it a bit more (sorry OP, lol). Here's a gar dissection, of sorts, sorry if it's a bit gross but it will give you an idea of how big a fish a large alligator gar can swallow. (The fish in the video is a large grass carp, not sure what the one is in the pics.) Many of the bow fishermen in Oklahoma are letting the biologists from the university have their fish for aging and diet analysis, this was one of them:

http://s749.photobucket.com/user/FullBlown77/media/VIDEO0100_01_zpsa1f55598.mp4.html

 

[Polypterus]

Since this has kind of become the de facto big gar thread, I'll go ahead and temporarily hijack it a bit more (sorry OP, lol). Here's a gar dissection, of sorts, sorry if it's a bit gross but it will give you an idea of how big a fish a large alligator gar can swallow. (The fish in the video is a large grass carp, not sure what the one is in the pics.) Many of the bow fishermen in Oklahoma are letting the biologists from the university have their fish for aging and diet analysis, this was one of them:

http://s749.photobucket.com/user/FullBlown77/media/VIDEO0100_01_zpsa1f55598.mp4.html

Bet that smelled just wonderful.. LOL