Longnose Gar

Lepisosteus osseus

The longnose gar is a fish with a long, cylindrical-shaped body that varies in color from brown to dark olive. Adults have:

• Dark spots on their back, fins and sides.
• A pale, silvery or whitish belly.
• A long, slender, beak-like snout.
• Sharp teeth.
• Hard, diamond-shaped scales all over the body.

Longnose gars usually grow to about 5 to 6 feet and can weigh as much as 50 pounds. Females are generally larger than males.

Where does the longnose gar live?

Longnose gars live in fresh and brackish water tributaries throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed. They are most often found in weedy, quiet areas, including lakes, streams, backwaters and large creeks, but are also common to shallow mud flats.

What does the longnose gar eat?

Longnose gars eat a wide variety of small fish, crustaceans and larger game fish, including perch, sunfishes and menhaden. They are voracious feeders, hunting for their prey by lying motionless in the water until a fish passes by, then using their long jaws to snap onto their prey and swallow it headfirst.

How does the longnose gar reproduce?

Longnose gars spawn in May and June in shallow freshwater areas.

• Several males often approach one female gar, which eventually settles on a spawning area.
• The female gar lays large, sticky, green eggs that are extremely poisonous to humans, animals and birds. Females can lay 30,000 eggs per year.
• The parents then leave the nursery area, uninterested in caring for their eggs. If the female lays her eggs in another fish species' nest, those fish may care for the gar eggs in addition to their own.
• Once hatched, juveniles feed on small insects and crustaceans.

Other facts about the longnose gar:

• Most anglers consider longnose gars to be a nuisance because they damages fishing gear and eat game and food fishes.
• Longnose gars can live up to 20 years.
• The longnose gar has been around since the time of the dinosaurs, before most of the fish we know today had evolved.
• Part of its scientific name, Lepisosteus, means "hard-scaled."
• Longnose gars are able to breathe air from the atmosphere. When high summer temperatures deplete the water of oxygen, longnose gars are often found lying motionless near the surface of the water, taking in air from the atmosphere.