Critically Endangered
Cuban gar
Atractosteus tristoechus
The Cuban gar, also known as the manjuarí, is a fish in the family Lepisosteidae.
The ray-finned fish
Cuban gar is a ray-finned fish in the family Lepisosteidae (order Lepisosteiformes) — Atractosteus tristoechus.
Range and habitat
It is a tropical, freshwater species, although it also inhabits brackish water. It is found in rivers and lakes of western Cuba and the Isla de la Juventud. Cuban gar spawn seasonally in the floodplains of large rivers.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
The exception to this is during spawning season, when larger parties of around 20 gar form to hunt. Adults feed on freshwater fishes and birds.
Young are prey to the introduced largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides). Cuban gar are currently under research for use in broodstocking, both due to the threatened status of gar species and due to the potentially valuable role of gar in reducing the pressure of fisheries on natural aquatic ecosystems.
In crisis
Cuban gar is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Cuban gar, Wikidata item Q1790887. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
