Sharp teeth and pointy snouts plaster the walls and bookshelves of Solomon David’s office at Nicholls State University, nested among the bayous of southern Louisiana. It’s like walking into a gar museum — perhaps the only such in the world. The prehistoric fish that adorns the walls looks like an alligator that has fins instead of feet, a long, narrow snout and armored, diamond-shaped scales. A small stuffed animal gar, custom made from a woman in the U.K. who makes scientifically accurate paleo plushies, sits behind David’s computer chair. Multiple gars from Mexico are mounted on the walls; there, gar is a regional delicacy known locally as pejelagarto — a portmanteau of the Spanish words for “fish” and “lizard.” Next to a whiteboard hangs a framed spread depicting a gar swimming in a river, from the children’s magazine Ranger Rick.
David sits in middle of this ad-hoc gar display, a ...
