Identify This!

[jonahpach]

Hello Mack The Knife CG and all ye fishing experts I found this peculiar fish in a village fishermans basket and took this photo.. I thought all such fishes (with long snouts and sharp teeth) were strictly sea fishes??

[Mack The Knife]

Haven't the foggiest but may I still retain my 'expert' status?

[jonahpach]

Haven't the foggiest but may I still retain my 'expert' status?

Well... I'm beginning to have my doubts! But it seems to please you no end so.. I'll accomodate you for now.
I was wondering how big they would grow to?? I'll think twice before jumping into a river in my birthday suit again.

Jonah

[cottage cheese]

Odd as it may seem I vaguely recall seeing stuff of that kind at the local macchi-bazaar... I'll ask the old hag when I go marketing next time.

[Yaj]

Looks like some sort of Gar fish. We had caught one like that on the Kundalika river so they are found in fresh water too.
Regards,
Yaj.

PS: Looked it up.Seems to be a Needle nose gar.Grows only upto 16 " so you are safe

Regards,
Yaj.

[TenX]

Looks like one of the pre-historic dwellers that grew upto a few hundred feet long, and devoured mammoths for snacks
... This one must have escaped from the production sets of "Journey to the center of the world"

.. Actually, Yaj is damn right... here is more info that I dug up:

GAR: Any of several ganoid fishes of the family Lepisosteidae of fresh and brackish waters, having long narrow jaws, an elongated body, and a long snout.

They are cylindrical fishes with long jaws and formidable teeth; their peculiar armature of diamond-shaped platelike scales, composed of a hard inorganic salt, is often found also in fossil fish. The largest species is the 9-ft (275-cm) alligator gar of the Mississippi valley. Others are the long-nosed gar (Lepisosteus osseus), the spotted gar, and the short-nosed gar.

Gars are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Osteichthyes, order Lepisosteiformes, family Lepisosteidae.

Gar flesh is edible, and sometimes available in markets, but unlike the sturgeon that they resemble, their eggs (roe) are poisonous.

More details at:
http://www.landbigfish.com/fish/fish.cfm?ID=144

[Mark]

We have a similar fish around here, called a Gar or sometimes "Alligator Gar"



They can get pretty big



Actually, they can get REALLY big, this one is about 100 lbs smaller than the record! (please note the weight printed is in error, it was actually 244 lbs)

[TenX]

Thats monster's size is unholy!!
The snout should easily scare of newbies

[Mark]

Just try clicking on this one then:

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/images/broken-bow-gar3.jpg