How old is my Gar?

[E_americanus]

Reading this highly intoxicated after a new years party, I will have too google all those terms and figure out what they mean. Definitly a project for tomorrow. Thanks for all the replies.

haha, understandable, and that's why i didn't reply/post last night

Happy New Year!

just for reference (and i'll try to dig up/post some photos of these structures), otoliths are the "ear bones" that fishes and many organisms have. during periods of rapid growth followed by slower growth, they put down a ring on the otolith, much like annuli on a tree cross-section. hence you can see yearly growth on most fishes' otoliths, and even daily growth in some species.

branchiostegal rays are structures found near the throat of fishes, and these will also have similar annuli, often easier to read than otoliths (often the main ageing structure in Lepisosteus gars, but not so much in gator gars).

fin rays and scales also show similar annuli in cross section, but are harder to read, and we often use the previously mentioned structures for comparison.

hope that helps!--
--solomon