The generic name Lepisosteus comes from the Greek lepis meaning "scale" and osteon meaning "bone". Confusingly, the name "garfish" is also commonly used for a number of other species of the related genera Strongylura, Tylosurus, and Xenentodon of the family Belonidae. Belone belone is now more commonly referred to as the "garfish" or "gar fish" to avoid confusion with the North American gars of the family Lepisosteidae. The name "gar" was originally used for a species of needlefish ( Belone belone) found in the North Atlantic and likely took its name from the Old English word for "spear". Gar flesh is edible and the hard skin and scales of gars are used by humans, but gar eggs are highly toxic. Unusually, their vascularised swim bladders can function as lungs, and most gars surface periodically to take a gulp of air. All of the gars are relatively large fish, but the alligator gar ( Atractosteus spatula) is the largest the alligator gar often grows to a length over 2 m (6.5 ft) and a weight over 45 kg (100 lb), and specimens of up to 3 m (9.8 ft) in length have been reported. Gars are sometimes referred to as "garpike", but are not closely related to pike, which are in the fish family Esocidae. Gars have elongated bodies that are heavily armored with ganoid scales, and fronted by similarly elongated jaws filled with long, sharp teeth. Gars comprise seven living species of fish in two genera that inhabit fresh, brackish, and occasionally marine waters of eastern North America, Central America and Cuba in the Caribbean, though extinct members of the family were more widespread. Gars are members of the family Lepisosteidae, which are the only surviving members of the Ginglymodi, an ancient holosteian group of ray-finned fish, which first appeared during the Triassic, over 240 million years ago.
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