will post more on this in the very near future as i've been meaning to update the ID keys on primitivefishes.com and lepisosteidae.net for some time now.
locality will be your best info in most cases...but with LFS bought fishes, this is seldom available. beyond that, with most live fishes, it's being able to look for subtle differences between FL and spotted. FL gars do tend to be stouter and have shorter broader snouts, but there are exceptions to this (especially when they are young juveniles and even in some adults).
spotted gars from different localities have a more drastic variance in appearance than FL gars from different localities.
and i'll talk more about the isthmus later, but in fishes this is the narrow region on the ventral side of the fish where the gills come together and join, usually in somewhat of a "V" or "U" shape.--
--solomon
locality will be your best info in most cases...but with LFS bought fishes, this is seldom available. beyond that, with most live fishes, it's being able to look for subtle differences between FL and spotted. FL gars do tend to be stouter and have shorter broader snouts, but there are exceptions to this (especially when they are young juveniles and even in some adults).
spotted gars from different localities have a more drastic variance in appearance than FL gars from different localities.
and i'll talk more about the isthmus later, but in fishes this is the narrow region on the ventral side of the fish where the gills come together and join, usually in somewhat of a "V" or "U" shape.--
--solomon
