An was observed on September 15 near Avondale, Louisiana.1 This federally threatened fish is a long-lived predator that requires large, deep freshwater systems and is sensitive to habitat fragmentation and water quality degradation.1
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were photographed within a few hundred meters of each other — the footprint of an aquarium built to house over 100 exotic species, including sharks and rays. None of these species are native to South Deccan streams or tanks, but none of them are loose in a waterway either: this reads like an aquarium's exhibit tanks, not five separate home aquarium owners clustered in one residential pocket, and it isn't a release.
The gar is still worth knowing about even as an exhibit animal. It's a large ambush predator native to the slow-moving rivers and bayous of the southern United States and Mexico, capable of growing well past a meter and easily outliving a typical home tank. Fish like this are common casualties of the aquarium trade when kept privately — owners who can't keep up with their size sometimes release them into local waterways instead of finding them another home. That risk applies far less to a maintained public exhibit, but it's a reminder of what a fish like this can do if it ever does end up loose nearby.
Bengaluru's lakes and seasonal channels are interconnected enough that a release anywhere in this area could eventually reach water bodies closer to the
South Deccan Plateau dry deciduous forests
reserve itself. There's no indication any of these five fish are anywhere but in the aquarium's tanks, and no water-quality or protected-land monitoring data suggesting a release has occurred. Still, it's worth watching whether similar species start turning up loose in lakes or streams nearer the reserve.
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