- Okay, we're rolling.
We've caught something really, really cool here.
I'm gonna give that to you, Florian.
It is a hybrid gar, between an alligator gar
and a longnose gar.
Wow, look at this!
(animal roars) (drums pounding)
(rock cracking)
Every once in a great while you find yourself
in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
Where you witness something magical in nature
and are lucky enough to catch it on camera.
Deep in the back country of East Texas,
we were on the second day of filming our epic
Gar Wars saga that centers around
the conservation of these living relics.
Look at that.
Our first alligator gar.
Wow!
It's a big slimer, this one.
Look at my hands,
just covered in gar slime. - Do you smell it?
- We set a series of gillnets,
and as we began our wait to catch fish,
the weather decided to make life on the river
a little more challenging.
Right here, we are in the water where there is no rain,
and here it comes, like a freight train.
This is gonna be awesome.
Nothing like moving through a rainstorm
looking for aligator gar.
Jeremy Wade, you'd be proud.
This is a true episode of "River Monsters" right here.
Every episode I've ever seen I feel like
Jeremy goes up against a rainstorm,
and then he gets the big fish.
Maybe we'll have the same luck.
Woo!
During a torrential Texas downpour
the only thing you can do is sit and wait.
There's a strange, eerie calm in the air.
And I feel like I experience the same feeling every time
I'm about to encounter a very large animal.
It feels very alligator gar-like out here right now.
Eventually the rain let up.
But with a more menacing storm creeping in on the radar,
we decided to pull the nets and call it a day.
That is when the magic happened.
We've caught something really, really cool here.
I'm gonna give that to you, Florian.
It is a hybrid gar, between an alligator gar
and a longnose gar.
Wow, look at this!
Okay, Max, what do you need me to do?
- Can you grab the fly, right where I am right now.
- Okay.
- Now I'm going to its tail.
Bail it some more. - Yup.
Okay, hopefully we don't flip the boat.
- We won't. - Coming up.
- Are you ready? - Yup.
- Three, two, one. (Coyote grunts)
- Wow!
Look at that dinosaur.
Not your typical fish.
A hybrid between the longnose and the alligator gar.
Look at the size of its snout!
Long, skinny, and broad at the same time.
This is amazing!
- This is something we've never caught before.
- Wow, really, you've never actually caught a hybrid before?
- We've never, ever caught a hybrid before.
- That is really cool.
Wow, look at the teeth that are coming up
from on the underside there,
that's so much different looking
than the alligator gar we caught the other day.
Okay, well, let's get it out of the net
so we can get a better look at it.
It's amazing how there's such a variety of teeth
throughout that snout, bigger teeth, and smaller teeth.
- [Florian] Don't put your finger in there.
- I'm not gonna put my finger in there, that's for sure.
This is huge for the research that the Gar Guys are doing.
Now they do have a skull of a hybrid,
but they have never caught a hybrid in the wild before.
So we're gonna collect biometrics on this fish.
This is crazy.
This is so exciting!
How excited are you guys to have gotten this fish?
- We're completely thrilled, man.
This is awesome!
- This is a really cool moment.
What you are looking at is the hybrid
between an alligator and a longnose gar.
Now the alligator gar has a very narrow,
very blunt, very short snout.
We featured that in a much larger fish
we caught a couple of days ago.
But the longnose gar has a very long, elongated snout.
And you can see that you've got exactly
the combination of that in this fish.
Now the alligator gar gets its name
because it similarly looks to
the reptile known as the American alligator.
But if I were gonna compare this gar to a reptile,
I'd say it's more crocodile-like.
You can see all of those jagged teeth
coming out along the sides of the jaws.
There you're getting the chance to just look
right down the throat of that river monster.
That is so cool.
An ancient relic, a hybrid unlike anything else
that is swimming in this river system.
And how this happened is essentially an alligator gar
and a longnose gar spawned together and created this hybrid.
Not something that you oftentimes
will come across in nature.
And look at the coloration, absolutely beautiful.
Much more blue in color than the alligator gar.
Closer in design color-wise to I'd say the longnose gar.
And that countershading allows these fish
to stay camouflaged from the surface.
So if I just gently set it down into the water like that,
it makes the fish almost invisible.
But when I lift it up, and you look at the underside,
if a prey animal were coming up from beneath the fish,
it would be able to sense that.
And that prey animal and would see
nothing other than this white underbelly,
which of course then blends into the light
coming down from the sun.
Wow!
This is like unbelievable.
The Gar Guys are so excited right now
for us to have caught this fish.
You guys wanna jump in here for a second?
This is such a cool moment for their research.
Hayden, we'll start with you.
What does this mean for your research this summer
to be able to collect the biometrics
of something this unique?
- Well, genetic research has been done on this hybrid.
This is actually the first account in science
that we are actually able to put a transmitter in this fish
and actually understand it's movement in ecology.
So, I'm pretty honored to do that.
And I can't wait to see what we find out.
- So Florian, for you, coming all the way
from the Netherlands, did you ever think
that you were gonna come across a hybrid
between two of your favorite species?
- No, I knew it was possible,
but this is very exciting,
and definitely a bucket list for sure.
So it's really, really cool.
- And for you Max, what does it mean to have come across
a hybrid between the alligator gar and longnose gar
while doing your internship this summer?
- I mean, it's really amazing.
It's truly unique and it's just a special fish.
- I feel like you guys are all pretty speechless
in this moment, when we pulled it up from underwater
the look on your face.
Like I had no idea that this was something
that had never really been documented by you guys before.
So to have this moment happen when we were out here filming
certainly is special for us.
We're gonna finish collecting the biometrics
and get this fish back into the wild.
But for me, I would definitely say this is probably
the coolest fish I am ever going to encounter.
I'm Coyote Peterson.
Be brave, stay wild.
We'll see ya on the next adventure.
All right, guys, let's finish up
with the work and let this fish go.
To be completely clear, this is not a new species.
Nor is it a new discovery.
But for the Gar Guys, this was the first time
they have ever seen a living hybrid gar in the wild.
And while we thought it was clever
to nickname this creature the crocodile gar,
upon further research learned that the term crocodile gar
had been used by researchers in the past
to describe this hybridized animal.
Honestly, I wasn't surprised.
It's a pretty obvious name choice.
Considering the design of its long slender snout,
you can easily see how it more closely resembles
a crocodile than an alligator.
Okay, this is it.
The moment that we release the hybrid fish
back into the wild, you guys ready?
- Yeah. - We're ready.
- Okay, here we go.
See you later there, big guy.
Interbreeding between species in nature
is a fairly common thing.
However, it's important to remember that
hybrids are sterile and cannot reproduce.
So while these anomalies do pop up in nature
from time to time, and they certainly are fascinating,
this fish's genetics will not be carried on.
Nonetheless, it was pretty cool
to catch this creature on camera.
Hey, Coyote Pack, if you missed our epic Gar Wars saga,
make sure to go back so you can watch from the beginning.
And if you want to join the Fish Force,
and help in the conservation of this species,
make sure to click on the link
in the video description below.
And don't forget, subscribe and join memberships,
so you can brave alongside me and the crew
on our next adventure.
I just truly can't get over the size of this fish.
(animals calling)