Longnose Gar

• Its scales are ganoid: diamond-shaped, enamelled and interlocking like plate armour. They are so hard that the indigenous peoples of North America used them as arrowheads and ornaments.
• Like the bowfin, it breathes air with its swim bladder, which allows it to live in warm waters devoid of oxygen.
• Its eggs are toxic to people and to many predators, an unusual defence among freshwater fishes.
• It hunts by ambush, motionless near the surface, and strikes sideways with a lightning-fast snap of its extremely long snout full of fine teeth.
• Its lineage split from that of the other ray-finned fishes some 250 to 300 million years ago; today seven species of gar remain in the world, all of them American.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bony fish)

Habitat and environment

Slow-moving rivers, oxbow lagoons and lakes of eastern North America, often near the surface and among vegetation

Sexual maturity

6 years

Sources consulted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longnose_gar

The pins mark the parks and dive sites where its presence is documented.