is this indeed a spotted gar????

[ospy]

This is a picture I found on the web. It looks EXACTLY like my fish! The picture called it a Spotted Gar on the web site. I have been assuming that I had a Florida Gar. Could this picture actually be a Florida gar as easily as a Spotted gar? If this picture is in some distinct way a Spotted gar as aposed to a Florida gar, then I have to assume that I DO own a Spotted gar. The top of his head with the spots looks Identical. For that matter the fish could be a picture of my own. Thats how much my fish looks like this.

 

[T]

spotted and floridas look very alike. theres really no way of telling.... or of what i know... i dont even know if thers a difference. maybe just differnt names.

 

[ospy]

well, I know there is a differance. One gets quite a bit bigger than the other for one.

 

[Infblue]

i don't know if the pic is a spotted gar or not. But i do know spotted and florida are two different species. i am not gar-expert enough to tell the two apart, but i know it has to do with snout length/width and age of the fish, and i know pattern is not a good way to tell the two apart as similar patterns can be seen in both fish.

 

[Polypterus]

Because of the angle in that photo it is a difficult call to say which fish it is. As Inf_Blue said determination of them is primairly a snout length/width and age of the fish thing. I'll add to this a distrubution and season thing as well. Some of these fish are around at certain times when the other is not. Floridas for example have a much longer spawning season than Spotteds do and will be available at smaller sizes much longer in a given year. locality, if one caught it, can give an almost instant ID in all but a few unusual cases.

Coloration is not an effective way to determine which one is which. It can be used as maybe a secondary characteristic in some cases, However, this should not make an ID, it should only be taken as a means to which you look further to confirm the species. Trying to ID these fish by coloration alone is really a futile exercise.

 

[E_americanus]

i've looked at this pic many times, primarily on the garfishing website. as ricky (infblue) and richard (polypterus) have pointed out, its very hard to tell the difference. richard and i have discussed this issue for hours on end and have made decent steps toward working on a good distinction and further study.

as for this pic, it's my opinion at this point (and has been for a while) that the fish pictured is a Florida gar. the angle of the pic makes it tough (again, as polypterus said), but i'm sure he would most likely agree (that and i think we've discussed this actual pic a while back) that this is most likely a Florida gar. snout seems too short and a bit too wide to be a spotted gar at that size.

if you have posted pics of your fish before, please let us know the links, or post a new pic...we can help you ID your particular fish as i'm sure you can get better angles than this particular photo. --
--solomon

 

[Polypterus]

I do definitly agree that is a Florida and not a spotted. The snout is much to wide at the base. The length of the snout is difficult to determine but by width alone spotted seems to be checked off with a fish of this size. If I'm correct (I might need to check with the information GASS was given) that fish is about 13 inches.

 

[USMCtanker]

looks like the florida gar i had

 

[ospy]

Polypterus, I posted a thread about a month ago titled 'Here is my 12" gar' and in that you concluded it was your best guess it was a florida gar citing many of the same points you now bring up. And for now, I will stay with mine being a Florida gar. It really don't matter all that much to me. Just mild curiosity. When I have guests at my house and they ask what kind of fish it is, I could probably tell most of them that its a angel fish and that would be good enough for them. However, I usually opt for telling them its a Crocidile gar, wich makes more sense to them. Even though, technically its not, close enough though.