Talk:Gar
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absolutely no reason to feed gar live fish such as goldfish or guppies. Not only is this cruel, but cheap ornamental fish are a very effecient way to introduce parasites into an aquarium.
whats cruel about it? if the gar is willing to eat it, its food... whats cruelty? thats like, a personal view. not a neutral view -anonym42069erfaqu
[edit] feeding live food to gar
I've written in the article "absolutely no reason to feed gar live fish such as goldfish or guppies. Not only is this cruel, but cheap ornamental fish are a very effecient way to introduce parasites into an aquarium".
anonym42069erfaqu then commented:
"whats cruel about it? if the gar is willing to eat it, its food... whats cruelty? thats like, a personal view. not a neutral view"
Feeding living animals to another animal is cruel according to the RSPCA, ASPCA, and any other animal welfare body you choose to mention. Since gars will readily take other foods, the only reason to persist in feeding goldfish to a gar is because the owner enjoys watching the gar attack live prey.
There are practical reasons, too. A varied diet of fresh and frozen invertebrates, fish meat, and pellets will give the gar the best chance of getting all the nutrients it needs. Cheap goldfish are maintained in squalid conditions and parasites are widespread, therefore feeding them to the garpike is a good way of infecting it. Finally, a gar trained to take a variety of foods is easy to look after because you aren't dependent on live foods, you can use pellets or whatever else is convenient at the time.
My comments on what they eat are based on personal experience -- I looked after a spotted gar for several years while doing my undergraduate degree in zoology. It ate pretty much anything.
Cheers,
Neale
[edit] Species name
A question for the experts: the species name in the alligator gar article has been changed from Atractosteus spatula to Lepisosteus spatula. This article says "Atractosteus" but the external links cited on alligator gar say "Lepisosteus". Which is correct? (If the designation has changed, both should be included on the page, and the date and reason of the change should be cited.) Thanks for your help! — Catherine\talk 02:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
- Yes, the (currently) correct Latin name for these gar is Atractosteus spp., at least according to Fishbase...
- Lepisosteus was the name for all the gars until relatively recently. It dates from 1803 (Lacepède, B. G. E. 1803, Histoire naturelle des poissons; Hist. Nat. Poiss. i-lxviii + 1-803 + index). Atractosteus dates from 1820 (Rafinesque, C. S., 1820, Ichthyologia Ohiensis [Part 8]. Western Rev. Misc. Mag. 165-173). Atractosteus was simply viewed as a junior synonym of Lepisosteus for many years. Apparently, E. O. Wiley (1976. The phylogeny and biogeography of fossil and Recent gars (Actinopterygii: Lepisosteidae). Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas Misc. Publ. 64:1-111) resurrected the genus.
- So, to cut a long story short, until the late 1970s all gars were Lepisosteus, after 1976 the gars were split into Lepisosteus and Atractosteus, and ever since then zoos, aquarium books, anglers, and so on have been gradually catching up. As the external links on the alligator gar article indicate, many places still don't differentiate between the two genera of gar, and treat them all as Lepisosteus.
- Latin names change as our ability to see differentiation and determine phylogenies gets better, so it's no surprise that these sorts of conflicts exist. Makes life awkward for wikipedians, to be sure, but it's a result of progress in the field of systematics!
[edit] Identifying particular species of gars
Is there anybody here knowledgeable of what particular species does the Mexican Pejelagarto belong to? There is an article in Wikipedia on the Pejelagarto but it does not reference the particular species. I think that would be a valuable addition to that article.
- Cheers,
- Neale
- Neale Monks 22:56, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
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- Thanks; I added your info to the alligator gar article! — Catherine\talk 06:18, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
