Tropical gar

Tropical gar ( Atractosteus tropicus )

The Tropical gar ( Atractosteus tropicus ) is a species of the family of gars ( Lepisosteidae ) that is found in rivers of southern Mexico and Central America.

Features

Tropical gars reach a body length of up to 1.25 meters and a weight of up to about three kilograms. As with other gars, the body is roughly cylindrical, elongated with a muzzle pines, far back sitting back and anal fins and low on the body ansitz brisket and ventral fins. All fins have only soft rays. The entire body is covered with diamond-shaped, non-overlapping Ganoidschuppen. Before the dorsal fin are 43 to 48 scales along the sides 51 to 56 rows. The back is uniformly gray-brown, the belly is whitish. The fins are yellowish- brown.

Occurrence

The species colonized still or slow-flowing areas of rivers and lakes in the Central American lowlands. There are three known populations. On the Pacific side of the way from southern Chiapas in Mexico comes to the Rio Negro in Nicaragua before. From this population probably comes from the widely separated populations on the Atlantic side, one of which is in the Usumacinta and Coatzacoalcos in southern Mexico and Guatemala and the other is in Lake Nicaragua and the river system of the Río San Juan in Nicaragua.

Way of life

Tropical gars are ambush hunters that feed primarily on fish and possibly also of crustaceans. Spawning is issued at the beginning of the dry season in shallow lakes and in the rainy season in June and July in the flooded vegetation along river margins. The animals lay their eggs here in large groups in a gelatinous mass from.

Swell

• William A. Bussing: Peces de las aguas continentales de Costa Rica. 2 edition. Editorial Universidad de Costa Rica, 1998, ISBN 9789977674896, pp. 57-59.
• Tropical Garfish on Fishbase.org (English)