my guess is a croc II has the correct boody snout and pattern or croc type beautiful gar btw solo
Gar Quiz - the return - ID the fish
- Thread starter E_americanus
- Start date
Tendou Souji;4343683; said:
before we ran the DNA on the Croc II the best i could do based on morphology was determine that it had to be a gator crossed with another Lepisosteus gar...ruled out shortnose and longnose (former based on the Croc I's that were all over the place for easy comparison, and the latter because it would likely look like the Croc I with a longer snout...and later we got photos from Shedd Aquarium). so that left FL and SpG as the other half of the hybrid, and at the time there was no way to tell much farther than that.
i just realized while going through primitivefishes.com the other day that i have not updated that hybrid info on Croc II to indicate that it is indeed a cross between a spotted gar and a gator gar (DNA testing showed this, ruled out FLG). so we officially know the Croc II is a gator x spotted (need to look further into that data for which was likely the mother and which was the father).
which leads us back to the answer...the fish is indeed the crocodile gar "type II". nice job everyone...i suppose only having photos of one specimen also makes for an easy ID as there is zero variability as long as you are looking at the correct photos from the correct age of the fish (as pattern changed drastically several times over the years).
really no major diagnostics needed if you have other photos to compare to, but i'll comment on some that may help later. next quiz hopefully up by later today--
--solomon
E_americanus;4343872; said:
Not to distract but I just have to say something about this Croc II and it's fairly interesting history. The fish was basically bucket born from a Guy out of Florida. He used Gators, Shorts and "spotted shortnosed" to create the original series of Crocodile gars. (He originally said Longnosed but retracted that) We found this out after several months of tracking. When they first showed up in 2003 they where first offered on E-bay and then slowly they started entering the general market. One day I got a call from a local wholesaler saying essentially "You need to check these fish out".. I went down to the place and there where about 15 really weird looking gars. At the time they where just weird. Couple of us guys sat there at the wholesaler for a bit and really we were not sure. I received one similar about two months earlier from a guy whom claimed up and down and then some he got it in the wild in Florida (Something I really question now).
Anyhow one stuck out and was a bit odder than the others. It had a very different pattern than the others. I noticed this one quickly and even separated it for a bit for extra examination. In the end however I left without any of the fish.
About a week later I went into a Pet shop called Savannah Exotics here in Michigan.. I used to work there and was at one time the manager of the aquatics department. Again I noticed the same fish there and one of My former co-workers told me they just picked them up. Sat and looked at it for a bit then decided not to get it again. Some type of common sense came over me about 20 minutes later and I went back to buy the fish.
Lo and be hold it was sold just a few minutes earlier. Solomon beat me to it...I would not be surprised if we passed each other in the parking lot. But ya know he at least nabbed it without question. I saw the dang thing some Three times before thinking of picking it up.
Irony of ironies.. Turns out in the end that Two of the Biggest gar nerds ever where tied by one fish. Tie that never ended as soon after all came full circle.
In short the Croc II is the prophet gar for Yankee Gar conservation
Dang special fish in many ways.....
that it is!! its a beautiful gar and i really wish someone could start making some more
ps interesting story
ps interesting story
Pejelajarto;4345190; said:Not to distract but I just have to say something about this Croc II and it's fairly interesting history. The fish was basically bucket born from a Guy out of Florida. He used Gators, Shorts and "spotted shortnosed" to create the original series of Crocodile gars. (He originally said Longnosed but retracted that) We found this out after several months of tracking. When they first showed up in 2003 they where first offered on E-bay and then slowly they started entering the general market. One day I got a call from a local wholesaler saying essentially "You need to check these fish out".. I went down to the place and there where about 15 really weird looking gars. At the time they where just weird. Couple of us guys sat there at the wholesaler for a bit and really we were not sure. I received one similar about two months earlier from a guy whom claimed up and down and then some he got it in the wild in Florida (Something I really question now).
Anyhow one stuck out and was a bit odder than the others. It had a very different pattern than the others. I noticed this one quickly and even separated it for a bit for extra examination. In the end however I left without any of the fish.
About a week later I went into a Pet shop called Savannah Exotics here in Michigan.. I used to work there and was at one time the manager of the aquatics department. Again I noticed the same fish there and one of My former co-workers told me they just picked them up. Sat and looked at it for a bit then decided not to get it again. Some type of common sense came over me about 20 minutes later and I went back to buy the fish.
Lo and be hold it was sold just a few minutes earlier. Solomon beat me to it...I would not be surprised if we passed each other in the parking lot. But ya know he at least nabbed it without question. I saw the dang thing some Three times before thinking of picking it up.
Irony of ironies.. Turns out in the end that Two of the Biggest gar nerds ever where tied by one fish. Tie that never ended as soon after all came full circle.
In short the Croc II is the prophet gar for Yankee Gar conservation
Dang special fish in many ways.....
definitely a memorable story...there are some details that i GARnered from this revisitation that i'll have to ask about next time we meet up (particularly the pet store in question).
other than that, i would say that i highly doubt the fish in question earlier in the posting was wild-caught...although it's possible these hybridizations could take place in the wild, it doesn't make any sense that a shortnose x gator would be found in Florida...even in their native ranges it seems unlikely and therefore your suspicions should be correct (especially since it's the same time frame the artificial production of the fishes took place).
another note, however, is that the guy who "made" the hybrids in Florida would have most likely have been using Florida gars...seems like a stretch that he would have gone out of the way to get spotted gars...yet DNA says spotted x gator, not FL x gator... so who knows?--
--solomon
