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These primitive fish are primarily freshwater. They range from southern Quebec through eastern North America to Cuba and Costa Rica. The largest, the tropical gar, reaches a length of 3.7 m (12 ft). The teeth are needlelike, the dorsal fin sits far back on the heavily scaled body, and the lung has blood vessels that enable the gar to breathe in stagnant water. Gars most closely resemble the species in the pike family — muskies, Northern pike, chain pickerel — in body shape and fin placement, but gars have rounded tails, not forked Gar flesh is edible, and sometimes available in markets, but unlike the sturgeons its roe is poisonous.
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Gar
Fish (Alligator gar Atractosteus spatula, Cuban gar
Atractosteus tristoechus, Shortnose gar Lepisosteus
platostomus, Spotted gar Lepisosteus oculatus,
