how do you tell the difference between...

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xander

xander

Manjuari
MFK Member
Sep 6, 2007
8,536
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Singapore
Adult Tropical gar and Alligator gar

came across this while searching for pejelagarto...i thought it was a tropical due to the stritations on the tail, much more tropical-ish than alligator
G_PEJELAGARTO.jpg


This one looks just like a gator
pejechon.JPG


Gator...can't remember her name
Gator2a.JPG

(richard's prolly v familiar w this specimen;))

and if gators had no patterning, their lower jaws look just about as wide as cubans...
attachment.php


at first i thought it was cuban due to the jower jaw, then upon seeing more gator gar jower jaw pics, i started to have doubts.
top.jpg


anyone care to help?
 
1st pic is a gator (am i right?). 2nd pic is definitely tropical. honestly i'm not good enough to say for sure what the last one is...but if i have to guess, it would be tropical.

if it grows to 5+ ft, then you know its a gator :D sorry couldn't resist, and no offense :grinno:

seriously i can't really articulate it. i agree sometimes certain specimen can be hard to tell. for me though its just the 'feel' the fish gives off, and it works for me, except for the really tricky ones...specifically i guess i look at the body patterns, shape/length/looks of the head and jaw.

i believe striations on the tail is a common characteristics for all Atractosteus, although on some gators they look more like elongated dots or something.

anyway heres my very unscientific input. lets see what gar experts have to say.
 
Infblue;1586821; said:
1st pic is a gator (am i right?). 2nd pic is definitely tropical. honestly i'm not good enough to say for sure what the last one is...but if i have to guess, it would be tropical.

if it grows to 5+ ft, then you know its a gator :D sorry couldn't resist, and no offense :grinno:

seriously i can't really articulate it. i agree sometimes certain specimen can be hard to tell. for me though its just the 'feel' the fish gives off, and it works for me, except for the really tricky ones...specifically i guess i look at the body patterns, shape/length/looks of the head and jaw.

i believe striations on the tail is a common characteristics for all Atractosteus, although on some gators they look more like elongated dots or something.

anyway heres my very unscientific input. lets see what gar experts have to say.
Click to expand...

i think first is tropical, yes second is tropical(how'd you guess?) and yes 3rd is gator. i know what you mean by using the 'feel', i mostly use that to distinguish bw tricky pics, but i wanna know how it's done scientifically:D
 
I agree, first and third are true gator gars, the second is a tropical gar. The others I don't know.:(
 
xander13;1586843; said:
yes second is tropical(how'd you guess?)
Click to expand...
from the patterns. and after that i can then convince myself of the head/jaw characteristics i see. admittedly it'd be hard (at least for me) if the head was the only thing shown in the pic, as it's pointing away from the camera.

i'm still not sure about the 1st one being tropical. if it is, that'd be one of the tricky ones i was referring to LOL for now i'm not changing my vote :D
 
Gators and tropical are very different morphologically.. I do not have the time to point out all the various details, but you can easily distinguish them on the basis of meritistic ratios. The snout for instance is very different in proportions. It is much narrower and longer than a gators.

The first pic you posted are not Tropicus those are very much Gators..
 
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