Species profile
Gavialis gangeticus
Gharial
CR · Critically Endangered — Critically Endangered — extreme risk of extinction in the wild
About this species
Gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) is part of the curated SpeciesWatch catalogue and is classified as Critically Endangered. The gharial's metre-long, chopstick-thin jaws are a precision fish trap — too delicate for large prey but lightning-fast sideways in water. Its recorded population direction is decreasing, so the category needs to be read alongside continuing losses of individuals or local populations.
Habitat, behaviour and ecological role
This profile associates the species with freshwater. These labels summarise environments used during different stages of its life rather than drawing an exact range boundary. Mature males grow a hollow, pot-like bulb on the snout, the ghara, which buzzes during courtship and gives the species its name. Its anatomy and behaviour are responses to those environments, while movement can connect distant places requiring different forms of management.
Why this species is at risk
Once numbering in the tens of thousands across South Asian rivers, gharials have crashed by over 95% as dams and sand mining destroyed their sandbar nesting sites. The catalogue records 4 principal pressures for this profile: Fishing nets, Sand mining, Dams, Pollution. They should not be treated as isolated causes. Habitat change, exploitation, pollution, disease and climate stress can reinforce one another, while the importance of each pressure varies between regions and through time.
Conservation outlook
Protecting and reconnecting habitat is a priority, together with infrastructure planning that keeps feeding, breeding or migration routes functional. Fishery management needs enforceable limits, more selective gear, bycatch reduction and coordinated compliance across jurisdictions. Actions need long-term monitoring and revision as evidence changes; a positive intervention in one place does not by itself represent recovery across the species.
Editorial review: 2026-08-21
Threat factors
Known occurrences
Dots are georeferenced occurrence records from OBIS (marine) and GBIF (global), not individual animals and not a complete range map. Up to 500 recent API results are cached; the profile renders at most 500 points.
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