Rare black fish with ‘mouth full of teeth’ found in Florida

Rare black fish with ‘mouth full of teeth’ found in Florida

By Mark Price

Source: sacbee

6/23/2022

Credit: FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute

A primitive fish straight out of a Jurassic Park movie was caught in west Florida’s Choctawhatchee River and even state biologists had to pause to figure out what they had. The discovery was made 100 miles northwest of Tallahassee by the state’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, and photos show the eel-like fish had black eyes and black teeth.

“What’s black as tar, has armored scales and a mouth full of teeth?” the institute asked in a June 22 Facebook post. “A melanistic longnose gar!” Put simply, the creature was a known fish with a rare and disconcerting abnormality. Longnose gar are typically a “tan-olive color, with brown spots,” but this one had darkened into something that would be virtually invisible in the murky 170-mile river.