[5][6] They typically inhabit freshwater lakes, brackish water near coastal areas, swamps, and sluggish backwaters of rivers and streams.

Longnose gar are found along the east coasts of North and Central America, and range as far west in the US as Kansas, Texas, and southern New Mexico.

Lepisosteus osseus (Linnaeus, 1758), the scientific name for longnose gar, originated by combining lepis, which is Greek for scale, and osteos, the Latin word for bony.

[7] Gars have been referred to as primitive fish or living fossils because they have retained some morphological characteristics of their earliest ancestors, such as a spiral valve intestine, and a highly vascularized swim bladder lung that supplements gill respiration for breathing both air and water.

[16] In most studies of adult L. osseus, a variety of species made up a majority of the diet, with the dominant prey changing among locations.

[17][failed verification] In Florida, their diet consisted mainly of fishes, with gizzard shad, bullhead catfish, and small bluegill particularly common.

Menhaden are a major food source along coasts where L. osseus moves towards the mouths of bayous into higher-salinity waters in the afternoon and evening to find this more prevalent prey.

[24] Eggs have a toxic, adhesive coating to help them stick to substrates, and they are deposited onto stones in shallow water, rocky shelves, vegetation, or smallmouth bass nests.

no management of this species is being conducted, nor is it federally listed as endangered, although some states have reported it as threatened (South Dakota, Delaware, and Pennsylvania).

Their declining populations are due to overfishing, habitat loss, dams, road construction, pollution, and other human-caused destruction of the aquatic systems.