Spotted gar (Lepisosteus oculatus) COSEWIC assessment and status report: chapter 4

Distribution

Global range

The spotted gar has a wide, but disjunct, distribution in the Mississippi and Great Lakes drainages of eastern North America (Figure 3). In the Mississippi drainage, it is found from Alabama to Texas in the south, to Illinois in the north, and from Tennessee in the east to Oklahoma in the west. (Lee et al. 1980, Page and Burr 1991). The populations in the Great Lakes are widely disjunct from the Mississippi populations. In the Great Lakes basin, populations are found in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Ontario and Michigan (Lee et al. 1980; Page and Burr 1991).

Figure 3. Global distribution of the spotted gar [modified from Page and Burr (1991)].

Figure 3.  Global distribution of the spotted gar [modified from Page and Burr (1991)]

Canadian range

In Canada, the occurrence of spotted gar has been verified at five locations: Lake St. Clair, Long Point Bay, Point Pelee National Park, Rondeau Bay in Lake Erie, and Bay of Quinte in Lake Ontario (Figure 4). The first confirmed record of spotted gar at Point Pelee was collected in 1913, in Long Point Bay in 1947, and in Rondeau Bay in 1955 (there are records of spotted gar caught by a commercial fisherman at “Merlin” in 1925, and at “Port Crewe” in 1938 -- these fishes were likely caught in Rondeau Bay). A single specimen was captured in 1962 in Lake St. Clair near the mouth of the Thames River. Based on its highly disjunct nature, the Quinte record is likely the result of an introduction. There are two records of spotted gar from the Sydenham River, both collected in 1975. One record was based on a metalarva (38 mm TL) that was subsequently determined to likely be a longnose gar by a larval fish expert (Darrel Snyder, Colorado State University Larval Fish Laboratory) (Erling Holm, Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), pers. comm.). The other record lacked a voucher specimen. Subsequent sampling (most recently, boat electrofishing, hoopnetting and seining in 2002 and 2003; N.E. Mandrak, unpubl. data) in the vicinity of the original records has failed to find any additional specimens; therefore, the original records are deemed questionable. There have been many additional reports of spotted gar elsewhere in southwestern Ontario but subsequent examinations of voucher specimens, if available, re-identified the specimens as longnose gar. If voucher specimens were not available for examination, the reports were regarded as suspect and excluded from this report.

Figure 4.  Canadian distribution of the spotted gar.

Figure 4.  Canadian distribution of the spotted gar

First Nations communities are located within the distribution range of the spotted gar, but information from community members was not available for inclusion in the status report.

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