spotted gars are relatively rare in the hobby, and most gars sold in the us are of farm bred origin which means they are most likely Florida gar.
Spotted Gar Care?
- Thread starter PayaraMan
- Start date
It's much more likely to be a Florida gar (L. platyrhynchus) than an actual Spotted (L, oculatus).
Spatula;3968435; said:
like SimonL was saying as well; i just bypassed the usual "you don't have a spotted gar you have a FL gar" comment and cut straight to the chase. this is 99.9% a FL gar we are talking about. and with the majority of things being equal, the care and size constraints on both species are about the same--
--solomon
just wondering why spotted gars are so rare in the hobby. Is it because they are difficult to breed in captivity?
m245;3971879; said:
They are easy to produce really.. The reason they are not seen is that the majority of LFS fish are either bycatch from Florida Tropical fish ponds or are from the production of those same fish in Asia. Actual Oculatus are just not intentionally produced nor are they collected.
From what I know now actual Oculatus where not all that unusual from the late 1980's to the early 1990's. This was when Gar of any sort where rather hi priced and not so common as they are today. Many where from the Texas farms or operations. These folded a decade ago and now almost exclusively it is cheap fish from asia or wild caught Florida fish that have taken hold in the hobby market. Some wild caught or bycatch farmed shortnosed and Longnosed do enter the market but it remains rather rare. Asian and Florida / Georgia sources occasionally produce them.
Gators are farmed in Florida and extensively in Asia. None in the hobby are wild capture fish.
What I think is really interesting is that Platyrhincus are second only to the Cuban in terms of limited and endemic distribution. As far as gars go they are pretty unique and as a species have a really small Native range. Not sure many really realize this. They might be really well represented in the hobby but in reality for the fish they are packed into a pretty tight spot with a very limited distribution. One should actually be pretty happy they have one and they still exist at all.
