CONFIRMED!! Spotted gars

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snookn21

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 5, 2008
752
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FT. MYERS FL
www.aquabid.com
Hello All, after doing a little research of my own I found out that we do have TRUE spotted gars down here in Florida. Ive actually found a new swamp loaded with only spotted gars. I have yet to catch a florida in it. FWC states that their are florida gars, and spotted gars in our great state. The way to distinguish the two fish apart is by measuring the distance between the eyes and gill plate. If it is more then 2/3s the size of the beak its a spotted. If it is less then 2/3s its a florida. Also the spotted gars are more narrow and not as thick as florida gars. I will post some pics, and post for sale adds soon. Just wanted to give you guys the heads up. Soon to be we will have longnose gar, spotted gar, and florida gar avalible on a regular basis :) Also I have learned how to ship the 2 footers!! We can now safely ship any 24" gar to your door with live arrival guarenteed!!
 
Sweet! Longnose Gar are SO cool! Mine is as chillin' as Gar be, I'm sure it would love the company of another LNG far more then the Floridas it is with now!
 
great news! although if i'm not wrong(which i seem to be a lot still) the 2/3 rule is pretty out of date(especially when it comes to captive fish which i know these are not). eitherways am looking forward to seeing some pics or getting some info of these spotted gars! are they different from the ones solomon has been tracking? and how'd you get the id of oculatus?
 
hey John, please email me about this for further discussion...it has been known for quite some time that FL has both FL gars and spotted gars, and there is a zone where they both slightly overlap too.

however, the 2/3 snout rule does not hold true in most cases and has been disproved (we did this in a museum specimen study and wild specimens as well). what may give stronger support to whether or not they are true spotted gars is their location...you can look up the maps i have posted on Lepisosteidae.net for each species...if you are sampling in the spotted gar zone they could very well be spotted, but if you are down in the same region where you find FL gars, they are likely another population of FL gars.

again, this can be discussed further via email.--
--solomon
 
It also stated that the spotted gars sometimes appear to be blacker in some cases jet black with spots. These guys really caught my eye because of their pattern and spots. Also with our discussion last week about our floridas with 2 rows of teeth. Ive learned that spotted gars only have the one row of teeth. Which the specimans ive collected from a swamp in ft. myers all have. The one row of teeth and spot pattern is much nicer along with colors of the fishes. No comparison to the floridas i collect in the glades. if you would be kind enough to provide this thread with pics of bigger sized spotteds it would be appreciated. I too will post pics of our gars and see if they look the same. I will email you soon solomon.
 
snookn21;4200519; said:
It also stated that the spotted gars sometimes appear to be blacker in some cases jet black with spots. These guys really caught my eye because of their pattern and spots. Also with our discussion last week about our floridas with 2 rows of teeth. Ive learned that spotted gars only have the one row of teeth. Which the specimans ive collected from a swamp in ft. myers all have. The one row of teeth and spot pattern is much nicer along with colors of the fishes. No comparison to the floridas i collect in the glades. if you would be kind enough to provide this thread with pics of bigger sized spotteds it would be appreciated. I too will post pics of our gars and see if they look the same. I will email you soon solomon.
Click to expand...

hi John,

i look forward to your email and we can discuss things further. in brief response to the comments, having done a lot of research on the early spotted vs FL conundrum, we have have found that pattern cannot determine the species (particularly down in Florida)...although once you have seen verified spotted gars against verified Florida gars it does become a little clearer.

the rows of teeth will vary between the species, but the main difference is between genera (Atractosteus and Lepisosteus...the former has two prominent rows, the latter one prominent row and one smaller row).

the darkening or lightening of spots is generally environmental and can also be genetic.

i'll post the range maps of the fishes too...true spotted gars are only found in a small portion of the panhandle of Florida and part of the north, most of Florida, particularly peninsular, if Florida gars.

will reply back to you once i hear via email...i'll post some pics soon too, but you can see comparison shots between the species at Lepisosteidae.net and also primitivefishes.com (wild pics and my own specimens) --
--solomon
 
From Lepisosteidae.net (which was cited from NatureServe data 2009)

Range of Florida gar:
GetImage



Range of spotted gar:
GetImage
 
wow sick gar,how big are they?
 
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