Product Description
This Alligator gar, 3 1/2" figure includes hand painted features to give it realistic details that are true to natural anatomy. This figure is considered a high quality replica. Highest Quality Natural Rubber.
These elongated torpedo-shaped ‘living fossils’ have long, broad snouts with two rows of sharp teeth in their mouths. Their scales are heavy and overlapping like chain mail, and their small fins are set far back near their abbreviated, irregular caudal (tail) fin. They generally grow to 6.5 feet long and over 100 pounds, but have been caught significantly larger. Numbers for alligator gar are dwindling due to habitat loss (they prefer wide, slow-moving rivers which are being dredged and restructured) and over-fishing, and are now protected in many areas. The alligator gar has been commercially fished in southern states along with other gar species, and has also been fished and bow-fished. The meat of the alligator gar has been commercially sold for over a dollar a pound locally. It is not classified as a sport fish in some states such as Texas even though there is a popular bow fishery along the Rio Grande River. It is classified as a sport fish Alabama where the limit is 2 fish per day, which makes it off limits to commercial fishing in Alabama. The alligator gars, along with other gars, are important to their ecosystem in order to maintain the ecological balance. Due to its large size and sharp teeth, the alligator gar is capable of delivering a serious bite wound to fisherman or swimmers. However, there is no documentation of attacks on man by alligator gars. The eggs are poisonous, causing illness if consumed by humans. The alligator gar is rare, endangered, and has even been extirpated from many of the outer areas of its range. Studies in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have shown that the alligator gar is very susceptible to overfishing. It has been classified as rare in Missouri, threatened in Illinois, and endangered in Arkansas, Kentucky, and is soon to be in Tennessee. Although fossils of gars have been found in North America, Central America, Europe, and Asia, the living members of the family are restricted to seven species living in North and Central America. Five of the seven species live in the United States. The range of the alligator gar extends from the Florida Panhandle, through the Gulf Coastal Plain and the Mississippi River Basin extending north to the lower portions of the Ohio and the Missouri River, and ranges southwest through Texas down to Veracruz, Mexico. There is a population in Mississippi Sound and the brackish water of the Gulf Coast and Mobile-Tensaw Delta that seldom stray far inland.
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