WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Alligator Gar 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:06.360 Hey, I'm welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:08.639 there's Chuck and Jerry's here for Dave. So this is 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:13.120 short Stuff as usual. Let's go. So can I tell 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:17.159 you my inspiration for this was? I was I was 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:18.919 at the lake the other day. We we got to 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:20.400 a lake here in Georgia. I'm not gonna name it 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:24.000 because I don't want to be stalked, okay, like no name, 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:26.280 like no name. Uh And I was at the lake 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.680 the other day doing a project and I was very hot, 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.720 because it's very hot in Georgia right now, and I 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.879 went to jump in to cool down. And right as 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.000 I was going to take a leap off the dock, 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.240 I saw a very large, like a two and a 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:47.800 half foot garfish kind of treacle towards the surface. And 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.199 I I've seen him before out there occasionally, but it 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:53.960 just scare the life out of me because it is 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.080 a terrifying looking fish. If you don't know what a 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:00.800 garfish looks like, just do a little uhm search and 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:07.360 they have these long, very sharp toothed snouts and they 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.680 are terrifying if you It looks like something that you 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.480 would find in a river in South America. And not 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.399 the one that you would jump into a lake in Georgia. Right. 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.319 And also, um, you travel back in time fifty million 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:24.200 years too, because they definitely look prehistoric for sure. Oh 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.280 absolutely uh. And this is specifically about the alligator gar. 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:29.760 And this comes from our old friends at House Stuff 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:34.959 Works in Michelle Konstantinovski. Great name, very nice, but the 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.200 alligator gar is super old, right, Yeah. They think they 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.880 found fossils as old as a hundred million years old, 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.399 not just fifty um. And they actually the reason that 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:46.880 it's called an alligator gars because it has a long 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.360 snout too, but rather than being pointed like most other gar, 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.640 it's flattened, giving it kind of like a shovel like 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:58.800 appearance or actually like an alligator snout. And the Latin 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.840 name for it is attracto status spatula. And that's right, spatula. 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.480 It's the spatula fish is another way to put it. 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:08.720 And it I mean it really does look like an 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.880 alligator snout when you see a picture of these things. Yeah, 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:16.000 they are huge. There um seven living species of of gar, 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.880 and the alligator gar is the largest by far. Uh. 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.320 The other way you can tell a diff is they 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.160 have two rows of teeth alligator gar on the upper 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.040 jaw instead of just the one row of teeth of 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.440 the regular gar. And I think their head is a 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:34.840 bit wider, yeah, And I think normally there um something 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:39.679 like about a hundred and sixty pounds too, maybe six 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:43.120 ft long, which is enormous for a fish. Um. But 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:47.880 they have been I guess found up to three fifty 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.080 pounds and ten ft long, which is even more enormous. 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:53.919 I think the record, at least in Texas is three 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.480 and two pounds. That was back in And the reason 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.519 we bring up Texas because a YouTuber named hating More 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:05.440 he's a conservationist, posted a video on his channel wildlife 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.919 Um last May because he caught one of these things 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:10.959 and it was eight ft long and probably about three 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.760 hundred pounds. Did you watch that video? I did not. 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.160 It is a very large fish and uh he likened 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.120 it to um kind of hanging onto the end of 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.639 a car that's trying to roll down a driveway. I 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:26.440 don't see how you bring in a fish like this 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.480 that that's that heavy, But he knew what he was doing, 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:32.480 and it's it's just enormous, man. It's I think at 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.800 the end he had that. Uh you know, he obviously 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.320 released it, but he was kind of um measuring it 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:39.400 and showing it off for the camera, and this thing 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.840 just like whipped around to sort of wriggle and just 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.800 like just it's so strong. It just knocks this guy 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.640 over and then swims away. And he's like, well, you know, 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:50.320 I guess I I was gonna let it go, but 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:54.040 apparently that just happened now, right, Good for him for 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.000 letting it go, or at least planning to. You know, Well, 0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:59.600 you do let them go because apparently they're not good 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.120 for eating. Uh. They for a couple of reasons. They 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.320 don't taste great. Uh. And they are covered with these 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.920 uh it's almost like an armored scale. Uh. They're called 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:16.039 annoid scales, and it's like that um sort of um 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.080 like an armor you would see on a dinosaur basically, right. Yeah, 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.040 they're very dinosaur like. And yeah, and the the even 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.040 if you can dress them or I should say clean 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.440 them to eat, like the meat that you get off of, 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.599 it's not going to be very good. And if you 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:33.880 find any row or fish eggs in a guar, you 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:36.320 want to leave those alone because they're toxic no matter 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.440 what gar species you're dealing with. So yeah, not really 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.479 a delicacy in any way, shape or form. Should we 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.440 take a break, I say, we take a break and 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.320 then we'll come back and talk more about alligator car 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.000 so um, chuck. I found out some pretty interesting stuff 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:20.120 about them. That an alligator gar is a an opportunistic 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.000 eater and it will eat basically anything. I saw that. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.360 They'll eat deer and raccoons if they get a chance. 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:31.720 They'll eat waterfowl, turtles, crabs, other fish. Um. But one 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:33.960 of the ways that they catch some of these things, 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:37.000 especially some of the harder to harder to catch ones, um, 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.400 they play dead. They ambush their prey by playing debt. 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.120 They'll float and make another fisher, a raccoon or something 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.320 that's going to swim past, think that it's dead. Then 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:48.920 all of a sudden it grabs it out of the 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.520 water and that thing is dead. And uh, they do 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.080 eat all those things, and they have those huge alligator 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:59.560 like mouths and teeth, so they're super scary, but apparently 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.600 they're they're not gonna come after you. Um. I was 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.920 just being a little, uh, a little baby boy the 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:07.960 other day when I got scared and wouldn't jump in. 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:09.640 If I would have jumped in, this thing would have 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.560 scattered and gone far away. It wouldn't have said, you know, 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.360 human arm must eat. Uh. They're they're just not going 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.000 to come after you, so you don't need to fear. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.800 I think there's never been on record a case of 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.360 I'll get her guard attacking somebody, right right, Yeah, that's 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.240 what I've seen as well. But I mean, I guess 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.240 if you had seen a gar that was floating, you 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:31.680 would have wanted to steer clear that one, because maybe 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.159 it wasn't ambush your arm. You know, you said that 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.039 you saw him in your lake. I'm taking it that 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.920 your No name lake is freshwater, right, I know it's 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.919 a saltwater lake in the middle of Georgia. You never know. Uh, 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.160 there's some saltiness in Georgia for sure. Uh. Yeah, it's 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.840 it's freshwater. Uh. And they're they're only in North America, 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.800 which is pretty surprising. Yeah, but they used to be 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.000 Remember we said that their fossils have been data back 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:56.960 to a hundred million years. They used to be found 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:59.000 all over the place. But yeah, now they're only in 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.760 North America. There are freshwater species and they tend to 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:07.400 like um, parts of like bodies of water with poor oxygen, 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.280 so like um, say like maybe a cove where you'd 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:14.160 launch a boat, um, or a backwater of a river 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.960 that's kind of outside of the turbulence, or even swamps 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.120 or bayous. And one reason they can survive in these 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.640 kind of lower oxygen environments is they have an air 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.600 bladder that not only helps them float, it also distributes 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.920 oxygen to their blood. Uh slowly but surely, so they 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:32.960 don't have to take in that much oxygen because they 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.280 can hold a bunch at once. Yeah. And I think 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.560 it's I think they're in Central America too. I just 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.080 want to put that on the record. So let's say 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:47.120 the Americas, but not South America. Men, these these alligator 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:49.640 are are really tough to pin down. I think North 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.320 and Central America because I did seek something about Costa Rica, uh, 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:58.760 which is okay, So the America's okay. Um. So people 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.960 just because you don't eat them, people still do fish 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.440 for them, like this guy. I think they are sort 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.040 of um. There are a lot of regulations in place 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:11.280 because they are really slow to to reach the age 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.080 where they can make little gar um. They spawn in 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:18.880 very specialized areas, so they're very ripe for over fishing 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:24.160 and for you know, like shrinking of species. But um, 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.120 for that reason, they're highly highly regulated and you're basically, 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:29.000 at least in Florida and I think a lot of 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.440 other places, you're only going to be given a permit 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.640 to fish for these things if it's scientific research or 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.360 you're working in like managing the species or something like that. 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:40.600 I tittered earlier, by the way, I want to say, 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.360 at an inappropriate time, but it was because you said 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.120 they're ripe for over fishing, and I just thought of 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:52.640 a ripe car and that sounds so gross. They're scary looking. Uh. 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.280 Early on though that, like you know, early earlier humans 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.160 would fish for them and do all sorts of things 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.640 that arm are like those armor like scales, those gonoid scales. 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.400 They made jewelry out of them and tools and things 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.200 like that because they're really tough. And I think they 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.320 would use their their skin for products and the skin 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:19.080 oil for different things. Yeah, who knows, what, do you 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.559 have anything else? I don't have anything else. I think 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:26.000 we've talked alligator alligator car to death. Well, I guess 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.200 the last thing we should mention is is that they 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:31.600 um even though they do our opportunistic eaters. I think 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.439 there used to be an idea that they would devastate 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.960 other fish populations, and that's apparently not the case. Right, Yeah, 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:41.079 that's right. So they were over fished because they were 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.520 considered a nuisance fish. So they were trying to protect 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.239 the fish that they wanted by fishing the car alligator 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.080 car out. But it turns out they were wrong. I 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.960 do have one more thing. Okay, the name gar for 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:55.400 these fishes comes from the Anglo Saxon word for spear. 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.040 That is good. And I've got one more thing. I 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.280 cannot help but think of a gar fish without thinking 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.280 of the great great documentary Vernon Florida, my favorite documentary 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.400 of all time, but the great Errol Morris and uh, 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.200 one of the characters, the guy that talks like this, 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.400 He talks about swimming in the river and oh, you 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:18.960 come u up on one of those garfish. You're a 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:23.680 better lookout brother. Really. And I saw that movie in college, right, 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:25.160 I didn't know what a garfish was. And it it was 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:27.280 many years later that I saw a guar and I 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.920 was like, oh, I get it now, I gotta see 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:35.199 that movie. It's just there's nothing like it. Yeah, uh, 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.160 you got anything else? I think, Yeah, you got anything else? 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.720 I got nothing else? All right, Well, that means everybody's 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:47.280 short stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.640 production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.880 visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:55.319 you listen to your favorite shows.