Reptiles
Gharial
Gavialis gangeticus · also called gavial, fish-eating crocodile
The gharial is the most specialised of all living crocodilians and one of the rarest. Its long, thin, fish-catching snout makes it unmistakable, and its dependence on clean, free-flowing rivers has made it a barometer for the health of South Asia’s great river systems.
Overview
Gharials are creatures of large, deep, fast rivers with steep sandy banks and abundant fish. They once lived throughout the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Mahanadi systems across Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. Today the great majority survive in a single stronghold, the Chambal River in central India, with small populations in a few other rivers and in Nepal’s Rapti–Narayani system.
A snout for fish and nothing else
The gharial’s snout is the narrowest of any crocodilian, and it is a precision instrument. Sweeping the head sideways through the water meets little resistance, and the ranks of sharp, slightly outward-angled teeth grip slippery fish that are then flicked back and swallowed head-first. This design is superb for fish and useless for large land prey, so unlike other big crocodilians the gharial is no danger to people or livestock.
The trade-off is that gharials are almost helpless on land. They cannot raise the body off the ground into the “high walk,” so they haul out onto sandbanks to bask and nest and shuffle back to the water on their bellies.
Reproduction
Males hold stretches of river and a harem of females, advertising with the ghara — the pot-shaped snout swelling that produces a resonant buzzing hiss. In the dry season females dig nest holes in exposed sandbanks and lay unusually large clutches of big eggs. The mother guards the nest and, when the young call from inside, helps them out — but, because of her delicate jaws, she carries hatchlings to the water in a throat pouch rather than in her mouth as other crocodilians do. Créches of juveniles from several nests are guarded by adults for weeks.
Threats and conservation
The gharial is Critically Endangered, though intensive work has lifted the wild population off its historic low. The core threats are all about the river: dams and barrages that fragment habitat and alter flow, sand mining that destroys nesting banks, fishing nets that drown gharials, and the loss of fish to overfishing and pollution. Conservation combines protected river sanctuaries (notably the National Chambal Sanctuary), “head-start” programmes that rear wild-collected eggs and release juveniles at two to three years old, and efforts to keep priority river stretches free of new dams and nets.
Gharial: common questions
What is the difference between a gharial and a crocodile?
The most obvious is the snout. A gharial has an extremely long, thin, tube-like snout that widens only at the nostrils — an adaptation for sweeping sideways through water to snap up fish with minimal resistance. True crocodiles have broader, more triangular snouts and a generalist diet. Gharials are also poorly adapted to land, unable to lift their bodies to walk the way crocodiles and alligators can, and adult males grow a unique bump on the snout tip.
What is the bump on a male gharial's nose?
It is called a ghara, from the Hindi word for a round earthen pot, which its shape resembles — and it is the source of the animal's English name. It is a hollow cartilaginous growth over the nostrils that appears in males as they mature. It amplifies a low buzzing hiss used in courtship, helps produce bubbles during displays, and acts as a visual signal of a male's maturity and status.
Are gharials dangerous to humans?
Very rarely. Their narrow, fragile jaws and small interlocking teeth are built for catching fish, not for taking large prey, and gharials are shy and quick to flee. Bite reports almost always involve people accidentally hooking or netting one, or ornaments and jewellery found in a gharial's stomach that were most likely swallowed with the gravel it ingests, not taken from a victim.
Why did gharial numbers crash?
Through the 20th century, hunting for skins and trophies, killing by fishers, and the collection of eggs greatly reduced the population. The deeper problem is river habitat — dams, barrages, and irrigation canals have fragmented and dried the deep, fast, sandbank-lined river stretches gharials need, sand mining destroys their nesting banks, and gill nets drown adults and juveniles. From tens of thousands in the mid-1900s the species fell to a few hundred by the 1970s.