Welcome to the inaugural Animal of the Week. Each week I will present a few facts about an animal and then attempt to convince you that it is awesome and worth your attention. Depending on who you are there is a good chance this second part may not take, but maybe you’ll learn something. Or not I don’t know. But it’s free. Anyway, this week’s animal is the…

Gharial Gavialis gangeticus

The gharial is a 10 to 20 foot long crocodile found in the rivers of India. While the croc grows to huge lengths (the biggest on record clocked in at 23 feet) they are not a threat to humans. Its long narrow snout is perfect for snatching fish, but too fragile to take down large animals. The species is critically endangered and there may be as few as 200 of them left in the wild. Luckily for us, reptiles are less picky than pandas and attempts to bread them in captivity have been somewhat successful.

I think it’s safe to assume the Gharial (pronounced Gary-ul) has its awful name to blame for its lack of notoriety. How else could such a fearsome-looking, 20 foot reptile fly under the radar? It certainly doesn’t help that there are only a few hundred of the critters left, and that they live in a remote and occasionally powerless part of the world, but still the whole Gh to start a word must eliminate a lot of potential fans. Anyway, if you are interested in keeping the remaining gharials around, please follow this link, or just take public transportation every once in a while and vote Green. And next time someone asks you what the world’s largest reptile is, try and remember that the answer is the Saltwater crocodile. But the Gharial comes in second, and that’s sort of special too.

*thank you to wikipedia for the photos, and for a good chunk of the information. Please email me before suing.