Spotted Gar
Lepisosteus oculatus
Summary 2
The spotted gar (Lepisosteus oculatus) is a primitive freshwater fish of the family Lepisosteidae, native to North America from the Lake Erie and southern Lake Michigan drainages south through the Mississippi River basin to Gulf Slope drainages, from lower Apalachicola River in Florida to Nueces River in Texas, USA. It has a profusion of dark spots on its body, head, and fins. Spotted gar are long and have an elongated mouth with many teeth used to...
Diagnostic description 3
Profusion of dark spots on the body, head and fins. Dark in coloration (Ref. 37032).
Distribution 4
Global Range: (200,000-2,500,000 square km (about 80,000-1,000,000 square miles)) Range includes the Lake Erie and southern Lake Michigan drainages; Mississippi River basin from Illinois to the Gulf Coast; Gulf Slope drainages from lower Apalachicola River, Florida, to the San Antonio River, Texas (Page and Burr 2011).
Habitat 5
Spotted gar prefer shallow open waters, usually 3 - 5 m deep, as well as stagnant backwater. They are often found near the surface basking near fallen logs, trees, or brush. This species is also shoreline-oriented, meaning it can be found near banks that include some sort of brush covering. Spotted gar are rarely found in areas that do not include some form of brush covering.
Range depth: 3 to 5 m.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; freshwater
Aquatic Biomes: lakes and ponds; rivers and streams; brackish water
Wetlands: swamp
Other Habitat Features: intertidal or littoral
Morphology 6
This species of gar rarely exceeds 91 cm, and the average length is 76 cm. Its body is cylindrical and often mistaken for a log lying in shallow waters. This gar is covered with hard, diamond-shaped ganoid scales. Their bodies are spotted, including the top of the head and the fins. Lepisosteus oculatus is often mistaken for the Florida gar, Lepisosteus platrhynchus; the two can be distinguished by the distance from the eye to the gill cover. In the spotted gar, this distance is greater than two-thirds the snout length, while this distance in the Florida gar is less than two-thirds. Females are generally larger than males, probably due to their reproductive investment. One study reported the mean standard length of a male to be 432.2 mm and that of the female to be 486.2 mm.
Range mass: 1 to 4 kg.
Range length: 100 to 914 mm.
Average length: 760 mm.
Other Physical Features: ectothermic ; bilateral symmetry ; poisonous
Sexual Dimorphism: female larger
Nature serve conservation status 7
Rounded Global Status Rank: G5 - Secure
Sources and Credits
- (c) Joachim S. Müller, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://www.flickr.com/photos/74743437@N00/345672001
- Adapted by rkkessler from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepisosteus_oculatus
- (c) FishBase, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/20848307
- (c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28812880
- (c) The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/25065284
- (c) The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/31401626
- (c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28812873
