Fish o' the Day - longnose gar

We'll probably deal with a couple more gar species eventually - today it's the longnose, Lepisosteus osseus. This is actually the common, large gar in most of our streams and rivers - we're a little too far from the coast to have the big alligator gars (although we certainly hear reported sightings). Actually, a lot of my students think this is the alligator gar, and it can be a pretty impressive fish. They can supposedly reach 6 feet in length and weigh 50 pounds, although a 4 footer weighing maybe 10-15 pounds is a big one. They sport the characteristic ganoid scales of all gars, along with the dorsal and anal fins far back on the body. The greatly elongated jaws are the most distinctive feature - at least as long as the rest of the head. They're heavily armed with sharp teeth - in a single row. That's the surest way to distinguish them from the alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula), which has a much broader snout characterized by a double row of teeth in the upper jaw.

Longnose prefer faster-moving waters than their smaller cousin, the spotted gar. They will often congregate in tailwater areas below dams, and we get them routinely in deeper areas of some of our local streams. The one up top came from a pool in Sumter County's Alamuchee Creek.

Young longnose feed on small crustaceans and insects, but quickly become piscivorous. They are primarily nocturnal feeders, and are strongly surface-oriented. Often, the gar will stalk fish from beneath which they take sideways in the mouths. Sometimes, they slash the mouth from side to side and impale small fish on the sharp teeth.

Like all gars, the longnose has a highly vascularized swim bladder that's connected to the gut by a pneumatic duct, and in the heat of the summer relies heavily on aerial respiration. We'll see them breaking the surface in the heat of the day to take air into the bladder.