Are alligator gars the only gars that have two rows in the upper jaw. Also there is a gar in the lfs being sold as an alligator/florida gar. It is about 8" long. It has an olive drab body with black spots on the tail and mostly on top down to the lateral line. Has anyone heard of any gar like this. This only my third post. I would love to post a picture but I am terrible at using a computer.
teeth
- Thread starter Ryan k6
- Start date
I believe all gars have two rows of teeth, it is just more prominent in the alligator gar.
As to your ID, I recommend learning how to upload a photo. The Photo Lounge should give some direction to that. Then we can help you more.
As to your ID, I recommend learning how to upload a photo. The Photo Lounge should give some direction to that. Then we can help you more.
to comment on the tooth row issue:
as madding said,
- all gars have multiple rows of teeth in the upper jaw, it's just the number of PROMINENT rows that we count in ID (this leads to some confusion from sources that don't mention the multiple rows of smaller teeth in all gars).
Lepisosteus genus gars have ONE prominent row of teeth in the upper jaw
Atractosteus (including, but not limited to the alligator gar) have TWO prominent rows of teeth in the upper jaw.
unfortunately inter-generic hybrids seem to have "1.5" prominent rows of teeth in the upper jaw
hope that helps!--
--solomon
as madding said,
- all gars have multiple rows of teeth in the upper jaw, it's just the number of PROMINENT rows that we count in ID (this leads to some confusion from sources that don't mention the multiple rows of smaller teeth in all gars).
Lepisosteus genus gars have ONE prominent row of teeth in the upper jaw
Atractosteus (including, but not limited to the alligator gar) have TWO prominent rows of teeth in the upper jaw.
unfortunately inter-generic hybrids seem to have "1.5" prominent rows of teeth in the upper jaw
hope that helps!--
--solomon
Ryan k6;4345285; said:
Really all gar have multiple rows of teeth. What is distinctive for the Genus Atractosteus is that second row is often very prominent and noticeable. In Atractosteus gars the second row will normally contain what could be called "fang-like" teeth. On Lepisosteus these will be reduced teeth or not as large as the outside row.
Without a photo it is impossible to say what your "Florida / Alligator" gar is but I would strongly suspect Lepisosteus platyrhincus which is the Florida gar. These fish are the most common of the Gars available in the hobby and it is also very very common for them to be misnamed with all sorts of made up things. (Marble line gar, Marble spotted gar, Spotted Alligator gar Etc. are common) Usually when a Gar is made up named mislabeled it is a Florida. All the others bring premimum prices so they are more likely to be Identifed correctly and named correctly. Most vendors go out of there way these days actually to ID things as "True__Whatever"... This is not always the case but a common enough occurrence to note. All gars also regularly are always sold as Alligator it seems that this is the only fish that exists to the majority and you can easily find anything called this. Most common is always Platyrhincus though.
Check some of the reference sites posted here and you can see identified example of all seven gar species and even a good number of hybrids.
one thing, i doubt any lfs in MD(anywere actually)
has a croc gar(gator gar hybrid)
pics would be very helpful though!!
ps god, solomon and pej are on top of things!
has a croc gar(gator gar hybrid)
pics would be very helpful though!!
ps god, solomon and pej are on top of things!
OK Sol we are overlaping again......
Since it is a convenient chat also I sucked at getting some LNG This week but have Id'd five to an area.. Will at least take care of the one for saline. These are pretty ones too..
Since it is a convenient chat also I sucked at getting some LNG This week but have Id'd five to an area.. Will at least take care of the one for saline. These are pretty ones too..
