Posted on 11/05/2025 11:21:56 AM PST by Red Badger
Alligator gars: putting the “gar” in gargantuan for 100 million years.
Dr Solomon David, AKA The Gar Guy, said it’s the largest alligator gar he’s ever seen in the field. Image courtesy of Dr Solomon David
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The Mississippi River floodplains are home to one of Earth’s most impressive river monsters: the alligator gar. Known to science as Atractosteus spatula, it is the largest of the gar species alive today and among the largest fish in North America.
Dr Solomon David, AKA “The Gar Guy”, has had more experience than most with these freshwater giants. So, when he messages you to say his team recently caught “the largest alligator gar I’ve encountered,” you pay attention – especially during #GarWeek.
In a post shared on X and Bluesky, David shared pictures of the 240-centimeter (7-foot 10-inch) alligator gar in all its glory. At around 136 kilograms (300 pounds), it had the research boat tipping, but together the team were successfully able to capture, tag, and release it back into the wild.
"This fish was truly gargantuan, and I don't use that term (or pun) lightly!" said David to IFLScience. "It is the longest gar I've encountered in person, and along with that the largest (girth and weight). There are certainly longer alligator gars that have been caught, but this fish was particularly wide, just a massive head and body, like nothing myself or anyone on our team had seen before."
"The jaw morphology (tooth patterns in particular) and fins also indicated what is likely a very old fish. I'd guess the fish was at least 50 years old, but it could have easily been 90 years. Alligator gars grow slowly after reaching about six feet [1.8 meters] long, and we know the species can live for over 100 years."
The team were successfully able to capture, tag, and release the enormous alligator gar.Image courtesy of Dr Solomon David
This kind of tag and release is part of a study into the Mississippi River floodplain restoration that is looking at how the large river connects to its floodplains. Gars make handy indicators for assessing connectivity because they use the floodplains for spawning, feeding, and as nursery areas.
"Alligator gars in particular migrate onto these floodplains as integral parts of their life cycle," said David. "So, finding large alligator gars at this site is a really good sign of connectivity with the river, and restoration efficacy."
"We are teamed up with The Nature Conservancy Mississippi on this project, with director Scott Lemmons who led the overall restoration project. Our team is investigating the ecology, life history, and habitat use of alligator gars and other gar species in this critical habitat."
Why so enormous?
The incredible size of alligator gars comes down to a voracious appetite that's shared by all seven living gar species. They'll eat just about anything that fits in their mouths, but they still remain vulnerable to changes in the environment.
"They are opportunistic predators, so if they can swallow it, they will eat it," said David. "This makes them harmless to humans, however, as their mouths aren't large enough to swallow a person (you're safe from gars in our waters!)."
"The large rivers, their associated floodplains, lakes, and coastal areas that alligator gars call home have abundant sources of food, allowing them to grow to these massive sizes, but these habitats are becoming more and more modified by humans. Dams and levees along large rivers can prevent alligator gars from reaching their spawning grounds. In some places there is unlimited harvest for alligator gars, which can have impacts on local populations of the species, as these are late-maturing and long-lived fish."
The alligator gar – a living fossil?
Gars are sort of like the poster child for “living fossils”. A living fossil is considered to be an animal alive today whose characteristics, or phenotype, reflect those of a species known only from the fossil record. It was a term coined by Charles Darwin in 1859, but one that’s been used in varied and unclear contexts ever since.
In 2024, a study co-authored by David became the first to identify a biological mechanism that could explain why some animals remain seemingly frozen in time like this. In some living fossils, evolution really does occur at a drastically slower rate, and it means they can create viable hybrids with other species – even when they haven't shared a common ancestor since dinosaurs walked the Earth.
VIDEO AT LINK...................
A record-breaking hybrid
Hybrids discovered between the alligator gar and longnose gar represent the offspring of genetically isolated groups whose last common ancestor existed 100 million years ago, making it the oldest identified parental split across animals, plants, and fungi. These hybrids are rare, but not unheard of. By a stroke of sweet serendipity, one of study co-author David’s graduate students – Kati Wright of Nicholls State University – actually caught one the same week as the above-mentioned living fossil paper's publication.
The ancient splits of the alligator gar and longnose gar demonstrate the slow rate of evolution seen among gars – a group of primitive fishes that David says are often wrongfully considered "trash fish", and yet we stand to learn so much from them. It's thought they may have super-efficient DNA repair that could explain the low species diversity, and if so, could inform research into human health and cancer.
So, a fascinating fish we can all agree, and if you’ve enjoyed this whopper, then why not meet one of its relatives: the spotted gar.
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I’ve seen people showing off bigger gar than this specimen.
Needle-nose gar backstrap tastes like lobster. The trick is you need a skill saw to get it open.
Record is 8’5” at 327#
World record was caught at Lake Rayburn TX. 283 lbs. 100” long. 48” girth.
Rod and reel. 6 lb test line.
By gar, that’s big ‘un!
I agree
Ha ha.
“but together the team were successfully able to capture, “
but together the team was able to capture,
In East Texas and Western Louisiana we now fishem, 300# test line on the compound bow reel. Same arrows and line you use for actual alligators which with a tag and season you can bowfish them too, pretty easy finding gators in East Texas now. Both species have rebounded well. Yes Rayburn is known for its monster sized gars so is all of the Neches river basin, same for the lower Trinity too huge gar and much gators in both.
Gar is not bad eating once you get the bones out and sawzall it into chunks it cooks like firm white meat like gator tail meat. we grillem or deep fry it or smoke it a Cajun cooker aka the R2D2 or the East Texas boys use the 55 gal drum smoker horizontal or vertical drum don’t matter both get the job done. It’s always a tuff choice between R2D2, the barrels or the Weber kettle have all 4 in the back each get used at least a couple times per season. The cinder block pit with diamond grate gets all the feral hog loving which has no closed season here. We hate ferals it’s shoot on sight, using the one hand no nuts method for eaters. That’s if you can pick it up with one hand at arms length and see it don’t got nuts that’s a eater hog.
You can shoot gar year round gator season ended Sept 30th for core areas and won’t open for the other area’s till April 1st hoping for a gator this year. Stupid legislator passed a law banning rifles and bows from public river beds against our Texas constitution at that it hasn’t made it to the state supreme court yet. At least it exempts bowfishing from a boat or bank. Some rich land owner’s lobbied to keep the public off “their” rover banks uh no crapbrains river’s ,lakes and inundated swamplands are the people’s lands grrrr they can’t keep you from access public lands,nor fishing ,nor shotguns for birds, small game or deer in season or hogs for that matter.
We catch ‘em in the St. Lucie River like that. Not a giant.
I’m glad to hear people eat them. I saw so many people just kill them and throw them back in the water or on the shore when I was in Texas.
We live in ETX and have a place on the Ouchita North of Monroe LA.
Written by the department of AI redundancy department.
I’ve tried gar back strap. Very tasty.
“Needle-nose gar backstrap tastes like lobster. The trick is you need a skill saw to get it open.”
Alligator Gar is good to.
Most fish grow throughout their lives, as do reptiles. That is where the dinosaurs came from. Once the lifespan of humans and reptiles shortened, they disappeared.
Personally, I have seen much bigger ones.
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