Who's heard of a Tylosurus crocodilus crocodilus

[rumblesushi]

These fish look awesome. I remember when I was younger, I saw someone catch a tylosurus in England and was confused, it looked very much like a gar from what I could see, yet it was in the sea.

I later found out these are the huge saltwater cousins of the freshwater needlefish from Asia.

This tylosurus species grows to 5 foot and looks damn cool, have any of our resident salt aquarists kept one?

Here's some pics...

 

[Euge]

holy smokes that looks badass. Love the last pic. I've seen drawings of them in old fish books i have but i've neve seen an actual foto..

 

[Timpon]

I've never seen one in an aquarium, but we catch them all the time here in summer. They are one of the hardest fish to hook on lures because their mouths are really bony and hard. We call them mini marlin due to their habit of jumping and leaping once hooked. When they chase schools of baitfish, they sometimes leap completely out of the water.

We call them Long Toms over here. Surprised they can be caught in England, since I thought they were a tropical or sub tropical species. They're not very good eating.

 

[messiner]

we call them needle fish here. there are many different species, and you gotta check out hound fish, they get BIG. i have kept a few really small ones in a tank and they did fine. i have caught them on lures but they are reguarded as a trash fish here.

link 4 ya: http://images.google.com/imgres?img...v=/images?q=houndfish&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&sa=X

 

[Oddball]

That needlefish, in FL, is called Strongylura marina and grows to 3 feet.

 

[mudskipper]

I miss my needlenose gar

 

[messiner]

oK so to clarify,
the needle fish in fl is Strongylura marina (look up)
the hound fish (link i posted) is tylosurus crocilus
i was confused.

 

[rumblesushi]

And messiner - to clarify I think we're talking about the same fish, hound fish or mexican needlenose

 

[messiner]

And messiner - to clarify I think we're talking about the same fish, hound fish or mexican needlenose

yeah, thats what i was confused about

 

[DiXoN]

these can be caught of the south coast of the UK if i remember rightly.
waters a little warmer there than the north sea where i live