Articulated Gar (Long nose and Alligator)

Gar are a family of fish native to the eastern waterways of North and Central America. They may look like dinosaurs but they're actually older, they first emerged as a species 240 million years ago. Today there are 7 remaining species of gar, who have remained largely unchanged through their long history. Gar can be identified by their sharp needle-like teeth and their extremely hard scales. I've caught longnose gar before and can say from experience their teeth can easily gouge and cut hands. If you catch one and are hoping to eat it, you'll need heavy-duty tin snips to get through the scales. Watch out for the eggs though, while gar meat is edible the eggs are highly toxic! Gar are typically slow-moving fortresses that hang out in shallow slow-moving water and swamps. This upload includes models for longnose gar (Lepisosteus osseus) and alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula). Longnose gar can be found in the waters of the eastern United States. They are able to gulp air to survive in these poorly oxygenated waters and eat small fish and crabs. They are the top of the food chain in their environments with no natural predators except humans. Their lax nature and propensity to stay near the surface makes them easy targets for bow-fishermen. Longnose gar can grow up to 6ft long and weigh around 50lbs. Their cousin, the alligator gar, however is much larger. These River Monsters grow up to 9ft long and can weigh up to 300 lbs. They are commonly found in the coastal waters of the southeastern United states and eastern Mexico, and in the brackish bayous surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. Previously they were considered a trash fish and were eliminated from their original range, but in the 1980s an effort to farm and release these fish began to reintroduce the fish to their waters. They also have extremely tough scales, native Americans and Caribbean people in the past used the scales as arrowheads and chest armor. Today, Alligator gar are a sought after for game fishing and their meat and scales. Both these fish have been highly requested here on MakerWorld so I'm glad to finally upload them. Their body shapes made it particularly tricky to balance strength of the print with anatomical accuracy, the thin shape didn't leave a lot of room for the links. The result is a P/X series-compatible model with shorter and fatter proportions than an actual gar. The H series print profile scales the model lengthwise to 130% to be more anatomically accurate. Since the alligator gar's defining characteristic is it's scales, I thought it fitting to apply a scale texture to the model. Both print profiles contain 5 colors and use 2 AMS units, but I've provided reduced color versions so they can be printed with 1 AMS. Happy printing (and fishing)!!