Animalia > Chordata > Lepisosteiformes > Lepisosteidae > Lepisosteus > Lepisosteus oculatus

Lepisosteus oculatus (Spotted gar)

Synonyms:
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Wikipedia Abstract

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 eat other fish and crustaceans. They grow to 0.61–0.91 metres (2–3 ft) in length and weigh 1.8–2.7 kilograms (4–6 lb) on average, making it the smallest of the gars. The name Lepisosteus is Greek for "bony scale". Habitat for spotted gar is clear pools of shallow water in creeks, rivers, and lakes.
View Wikipedia Record: Lepisosteus oculatus

Attributes

Adult Length [2]  3.674 feet (112 cm)
Brood Dispersal [2]  In the open
Brood Egg Substrate [2]  Phytophils
Brood Guarder [2]  No
Litter Size [2]  22,000
Maximum Longevity [2]  18 years
Nocturnal [1]  Yes
Water Biome [1]  Lakes and Ponds, Rivers and Streams, Brackish Water
Adult Weight [3]  5.384 lbs (2.442 kg)
Diet [1]  Carnivore
Female Maturity [2]  3 years 6 months

Protected Areas

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 2Frimpong, E.A., and P. L. Angermeier. 2009. FishTraits: a database of ecological and life-history traits of freshwater fishes of the United States. Fisheries 34:487-495.
♦ 3de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 4Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 5Production sources and food web structure of a temperate tidal estuary: integration of dietary and stable isotope data, Kirk O. Winemiller, Senol Akin, Steven C. Zeug, Mar Ecol Prog Ser 343: 63–76, 2007
♦ 6Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0