On recent paddle up Tranters Creek near Washington, NC, the water, particularly in certain reaches, was churning with longnose gar surfacing (often called rolling) and leaping. It was a beautiful day on the creek, and I was reporting on it to my wife Lynn, who was not able to accompany me. When I indicated that I wished she had been there, she indicated that she had no interest in paddling through "gar soup," as I called it. She finds them "icky," and referred to them as primitive, unevolved, gill-less, top-breathing bottom feeders (OK, I am paraphrasing and embellishing here). Though I have nothing against gar I did not argue as I thought it was not an inaccurate characterization.
Gar party on Tranters Creek, NC
But I was wrong.
Longnose gar (Lepisosteus osseus) are indeed often described as primitive, because they have retained some primitive features, such as a spiral valve intestine and ganoid scales. They are olive brown to green in color, and their scaly armoring, torpedo shape, and long, toothy, spear-like snout do make them look like unevolved Jurassic killing machines. It seems they have been around for at least 100 million years, which would place them in the Cretaceous (younger than Jurassic but still dinosaur times), but in the U.S. fossils date only to the Pleistocene.
Longnose gar in the N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher
Unevolved, they are not; they are actually highly adapted to their habitats. They are indeed gill-less. Instead they have a swim bladder that allows them to breathe air or water, which in turn affords them success in waters with low dissolved oxygen (DO), a frequent hazard for fish in the estuaries and swamps of the southeastern U.S. Their surfacing is the air-breathing part, and when they are churning the water as they were recently on Tranters Creek (I have seen similar gar parties in other creeks and swamps) it probably indicates low DO. Longnose gar are not bottom-feeders, or at least not exclusively or primarily. They generally eat small fish, and occasionally crustaceans and insects, wherever they find them.
Longnose gar distribution in the U.S.A.
The species is mostly freshwater, but has been found in salinities up to 31 ppt, nearly that of ocean water. They are quite common in estuaries of the Pamlico-Albemarle Sound system, where they come out of the freshwater to feed on menhaden. They are found in lakes, ponds, swamps, and slow-moving rivers and creeks.
Longnose gar from eastern N.C.
Fun gar factoids:
•The species was first named (though the genus was later renamed) by Carl Linnaeus, the father of biological taxonomy, in 1758. The name Lepisosteus osseus is derived from lepis (Greek for scale) and osteos (Latin for bony).
•The North Carolina record for longnose gar has been broken twice so far in 2025, first in the Intracoastal Waterway near Coinjock, and then in a quarry pond near Maysville. The world record (25.5 kg) was caught by a bowfisher on Lake Palestine in east Texas.
•Longnose gar can reach 2 m in length. The ones I see in the swamps of the Carolinas are generally in the 0.5 to 1 m range.
•Longnose gar are known to breed and hybridize with the even bigger and scarier looking alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula), but that only happens in the Gulf Coast and lower Mississippi/Ohio River valleys. Alligator gar are not found along the SE coast.
87.5 kg alligator gar from the Trinity River, Texas (https://www.reddit.com/r/Fishing/comments/13n2cte/alligator_gar_193_lbs_trinity_river_texas/#lightbox)
More information at animalia.bio.
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