Description of Spotted Gar

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 the body, head and fins. It occasionally enters brackish waters. The fish is a voracious predator feeding on various kinds of fishes and crustaceans.

Spotted gar prefer shallow open waters, usually 3 - 5 m deep, as well as stagnant backwater. Spotted gar are rarely found in areas that do not include some form of brush covering. This species of gar rarely exceeds 91 cm, and the average length is 76 cm. This gar is covered with hard, diamond-shaped ganoid scales. 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.

Spotted Gar

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Lepisosteiformes
Family: Lepisosteidae
Genus: Lepisosteus
Species: L. oculatus