As i posted in another of our threads, i did more research, not only on the difference between these Gars, but also on the researchers.
I claimed, that it was possible to distinguish between the"spotted Gar" and the "Florida Gar".
But this night i visited another graveyard of science, and I'm quoting some stuff said.
The biggest point , like the Experts and Examiners said for years, of difference was that :

'the Florida and spotted gars are distinguishable from each other primarily by the snout length. The distance from the front of the eye to the back of the gill cover is less than 2/3 the length of the snout in the Florida gar, while it is more than 2/3 of the length in the spotted gar. The Florida gar lacks bony scales on the throat.'

This is what i was taught for years, so i stuck to that statement.
Now it appears that this evedence makes no sense in aquariumfish!!!
One of the Academics, examining Gars states :

I'm sorry to say is rubbish with hobby sized fish..It might work for larger adults in the wild but it has little to no use in the ID of captive fish. The only 100% concrete manner to ID these fish is to know the location where they or the breeding stock they came from originated. even when examining known fish with known locality data attached the whole 2/3rd thing was useless for ID purposes..The bony plates can only be observed when you cut out the opercular cover so obviously this is not such a good way tho ID you fish if you want it alive..

There is no way to positively verify however without genetic analysis.
There are no clear external differences. General proportions tend to be intermediate in Nature and these proportions fall in range of natural variation for both the spotted and Florida..

There is some evidence that some of the 'Florida gars' being imported from farms in Asia are in fact hybrids with spotteds.

As said.. there is no clear information about this presumed hybrid and what is known is based on anecdotal evidence and observation of fish within the hobby. There is also the presumed natural hybrids that exist in the Northern and western part of the natural range of Lepisosteus platyrhincus where it overlaps with L. oculatus.

So, i have to change some things in my thinking.
Again, after years,proclaiming one thing, science can't judge, so I cannot either by outward appearance.
Especialy when there are rumours, that they may be crossbred, or have crossbred themselves.

So, if anyone comes, to ask if he has a Spotted or a Florida Gar, all i can say is:
I DON'T KNOW, it might even be a hybrid.
And if killing the Gar to check the opercular cover, might be the only way to find out, We'll say it looks like a Florida, but the Spotted looks the same.
It may even be a hybrid.
Science, don't you love it?

One day the earth is flat, and the next it's round...

so you can't know?

If I'm not mistaken (I read this once somewhere, so I could very well be wrong) the spotted gar stays less than 90cms, while the florida gar grows well over 1 meter long...

That's not a small difference, at all.

"I'm sorry to say is rubbish with hobby sized fish..It might work for larger adults in the wild but it has little to no use in the ID of captive fish."

So that's nice when you got Gars to catch while fishing, but most Gar I.D's are asked for Y.O.Y aquarium gars...

Angus from stones aquarium told one on my regular foru that the only way to tell the difference was by looking in their mouths.Dont know what the nexact differnce is but they should look different.

I never remember you writing this noddy was a nice little rant/ read lol

sounds like its a crap shoot.

which one do you like better Noddy?