Spotted Marble Amazon Gar (Boulengerella maculata)

When is a gar not a gar? When it’s really more of a tetra… like with the Marbled Gar. Though it shares a comparable body shape with the true gars, this is the result of these two unrelated fishes having a similarly predatory lifestyle. Both skulk about slowly near the surface of the water, picking off any unwary fish that ventures too closely. But, while the true gars are of an ancient evolutionary stock, Boulengerella is actually a characiform and thus a close relative of the tetras. You’ll also see this fish referred to as a “pike-characin”, in reference to its similarities to yet another unrelated predatory fish—the pike.