Atractosteus tropicus, Tropical gar

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Atractosteus tropicus Gill, 1863

Tropical gar
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Atractosteus tropicus
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Classification / Names Common names | Synonyms | Catalog of Fishes(genus, species) | ITIS | CoL | WoRMS | Cloffa

Holostei (gars and bowfins) > Lepisosteiformes (Gars) > Lepisosteidae (Gars)
Etymology: Atractosteus: Greek, atraktos, arrow + Greek, osteon = bone (Ref. 45335).
More on author: Gill.

Environment: milieu / climate zone / depth range / distribution range Ecology

Freshwater; demersal. Tropical

Distribution Countries | FAO areas | Ecosystems | Occurrences | Point map | Introductions | Faunafri

Central America: Caribbean and Pacific drainages of southern Mexico and Central America.

Length at first maturity / Size / Weight / Age

Maturity: Lm 45.5, range 50 - 60 cm
Max length : 125 cm TL male/unsexed; (Ref. 36722); max. published weight: 2.9 kg (Ref. 40637)

Biology     Glossary (e.g. epibenthic)

Facultative air-breathing (Ref. 126274); Inhabit backwaters and slow moving sections of rivers and lakes. Often found in the warm stagnant waters of the lowland. Visible on the surface and resemble floating logs. Enter shallow lakes at the beginning of the dry season to spawn and known to reproduce also in June and July when rains are heaviest and rivers flood their banks providing an ideal spawning habitat of flooded vegetation. Large schools form to cast thousands of eggs in a gelatinous mass in the shallow waters. The adults return again to the river leaving the fry amongst the flooded vegetation (Ref. 36880). The eggs are poisonous to eat (Ref. 4537).

Life cycle and mating behavior Maturity | Reproduction | Spawning | Eggs | Fecundity | Larvae

Main reference Upload your references | References | Coordinator : Wiley, Ed | Collaborators

Ferraris, C.J. Jr., 2003. Lepisosteidae (Gars). p. 29. In R.E. Reis, S.O. Kullander and C.J. Ferraris, Jr. (eds.) Checklist of the Freshwater Fishes of South and Central America. Porto Alegre: EDIPUCRS, Brasil. (Ref. 36722)

IUCN Red List Status (Ref. 130435)

  Least Concern (LC) ; Date assessed: 21 March 2018

CITES

Not Evaluated

CMS (Ref. 116361)

Not Evaluated

Threat to humans

  Poisonous to eat (Ref. 4537)





Human uses

FAO - Fisheries: landings; Publication: search | FishSource |

More information

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FAO areas
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Ecology
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Common names
Synonyms
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Predators
Ecotoxicology
Reproduction
Maturity
Spawning
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Fecundity
Eggs
Egg development
Age/Size
Growth
Length-weight
Length-length
Length-frequencies
Morphometrics
Morphology
Larvae
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Otoliths
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Internet sources

AFORO (otoliths) | Aquatic Commons | BHL | Cloffa | BOLDSystems | Websites from users | Check FishWatcher | CISTI | Catalog of Fishes: genus, species | DiscoverLife | ECOTOX | FAO - Fisheries: landings; Publication: search | Faunafri | Fishipedia | Fishtrace | GenBank: genome, nucleotide | GloBI | Google Books | Google Scholar | Google | IGFA World Record | MitoFish | National databases | Otolith Atlas of Taiwan Fishes | PubMed | Reef Life Survey | Socotra Atlas | Tree of Life | Wikipedia: Go, Search | World Records Freshwater Fishing | Zoobank | Zoological Record

Estimates based on models

Phylogenetic diversity index (Ref. 82804):  PD50 = 0.6406   [Uniqueness, from 0.5 = low to 2.0 = high].
Bayesian length-weight: a=0.00302 (0.00121 - 0.00751), b=3.18 (2.96 - 3.40), in cm total length, based on LWR estimates for this (Sub)family-body shape (Ref. 93245).
Trophic level (Ref. 69278):  4.2   ±0.73 se; based on food items.
Resilience (Ref. 120179):  Low, minimum population doubling time 4.5 - 14 years (Preliminary K or Fecundity.).
Fishing Vulnerability (Ref. 59153):  High to very high vulnerability (75 of 100).