- Sometimes called living fossils, longnose gar belong to a genus that has existed in North America for 100 million years. For comparison, the homo genus to which humans belong is between 2.5 and 3 million years old.
- The oldest gar on record lived to be 39 years old.
- Longnose gar can breath air, which allows them to inhabitat warmer waters that are low in oxygen.
- Longnose gar were once an important source of food for Native Americans and European colonists.