Gar Quiz - the return - ID the fish
- Thread starter E_americanus
- Start date
will post answers and explanations in the next hour or so. thanks to everyone for your responses, definitely a learning experience as always. thanks also to xander for submitting these pics, definitely some tough ID's here! back with more soon--
--solomon
--solomon
ok sorry for the delay in posting, here are the answers; again, thanks to everyone who participated!
Gar #1
Gar #2
ANSWERS:
gar 1 - tropical gar
comments: i'll be the first to admit this is a really tough ID. i struggled to look for reasons why it was a t-gar and not a FL gar...they look very similar at this size, but there is some difference in snout width and the eyes. very tough as this individual doesn't show the frequently seen "trident" on juvie trops.
FL gars and spotted gars should have some dorsal spotting, this fish lacks this. longnose gars have a longer snout, as would a shortnose gar...shortnoses also generally lack this bold of patterning and their snouts are slightly longer and slimmer at this size. i'm working more on some eye differences between species as this also seems different, not only between genera, but also among species (richard, we need to chat about this on the next field trip...or perhaps i'm just "seeing" things
).
one can rule out Cuban gar and alligator gar as pattern doesn't match a juvie Cuban, and snout is much longer and slimmer than a juvie gator gar.
it also lacks the...
WHITE STRIPE which narrows GAR #2 down to Cuban or alligator gar. except for tropical, other members of Atractosteus genus have a characteristic dorsal white stripe when they are very small. in gators this can often be broken up by a more camouflage pattern, in Cubans it's pretty plain. that white stripe (and this info is found online in some places if you were looking around thoroughly) quickly narrows the fish down to Cuban and gator and rules out all others. therefore Gar #2 is an early stage YOY Cuban gar.
will post comparison photos soon. thanks to all who participated...i'll get the next quiz up soon!--
--solomon
PS-- and by learning experience, i didn't mean you all got it wrong, i meant we all learned a bit more on diagnosing gars with minimal info...i learn from this like everyone else
Gar #1
Gar #2
ANSWERS:
gar 1 - tropical gar
comments: i'll be the first to admit this is a really tough ID. i struggled to look for reasons why it was a t-gar and not a FL gar...they look very similar at this size, but there is some difference in snout width and the eyes. very tough as this individual doesn't show the frequently seen "trident" on juvie trops.
FL gars and spotted gars should have some dorsal spotting, this fish lacks this. longnose gars have a longer snout, as would a shortnose gar...shortnoses also generally lack this bold of patterning and their snouts are slightly longer and slimmer at this size. i'm working more on some eye differences between species as this also seems different, not only between genera, but also among species (richard, we need to chat about this on the next field trip...or perhaps i'm just "seeing" things
).one can rule out Cuban gar and alligator gar as pattern doesn't match a juvie Cuban, and snout is much longer and slimmer than a juvie gator gar.
it also lacks the...
WHITE STRIPE which narrows GAR #2 down to Cuban or alligator gar. except for tropical, other members of Atractosteus genus have a characteristic dorsal white stripe when they are very small. in gators this can often be broken up by a more camouflage pattern, in Cubans it's pretty plain. that white stripe (and this info is found online in some places if you were looking around thoroughly) quickly narrows the fish down to Cuban and gator and rules out all others. therefore Gar #2 is an early stage YOY Cuban gar.
will post comparison photos soon. thanks to all who participated...i'll get the next quiz up soon!--
--solomon
PS-- and by learning experience, i didn't mean you all got it wrong, i meant we all learned a bit more on diagnosing gars with minimal info...i learn from this like everyone else
examples of the white stripe on Cuban and gator gars...it quickly fades as the juveniles get even several inches long, so we seldom see it on LFS gators since they are already too large.
here is a shot of an early stage gator gar juvenile showing the white stripe and a somewhat exaggerated camouflage pattern. this is from the bayousphere research lab in Louisiana:
http://www.nicholls.edu/bayousphere/workinggroup/index.html
here is a shot of the typical size we see YOY gators in LFS...you can see the faded white stripe (really only remains on the dorsum of snout) :
here is a shot of an early stage gator gar juvenile showing the white stripe and a somewhat exaggerated camouflage pattern. this is from the bayousphere research lab in Louisiana:
http://www.nicholls.edu/bayousphere/workinggroup/index.html
here is a shot of the typical size we see YOY gators in LFS...you can see the faded white stripe (really only remains on the dorsum of snout) :
this shot is from some juvenile Cubans we brought in 3 years ago...several pics in this thread and a lot of background info if you want to read up on our previous work with YOY Cubans:
THREAD:
http://aquaticpredators.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=35816&st=0
Note that even at this size the white stripe really only shows on the dorsum of the snout, but look at how much slimmer the Cuban gar is at this stage from the gator gar (even the snout). this diagnoses gar #2 as a Cuban effectively:
THREAD:
http://aquaticpredators.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=35816&st=0
Note that even at this size the white stripe really only shows on the dorsum of the snout, but look at how much slimmer the Cuban gar is at this stage from the gator gar (even the snout). this diagnoses gar #2 as a Cuban effectively:
