The Gharial — Feared for Nothing

One crocodilian in this book does not hunt people at all, and it happens to be one of the most fearsome-looking animals alive. The gharial, Gavialis gangeticus, of the great rivers of northern India and Nepal, has been feared for centuries for a danger it cannot pose. Its jaws are a long, thin fish-trap, lined with needle teeth and wrong in every way for taking a mammal. Wrong in every way. It is here not because it threatens you but because knowing it is no man-hunter is every bit as important as naming the ones that are. When people fear every crocodile the same, they kill every crocodile the same, and a harmless giant like this one gets driven to the edge of extinction for a reputation it never earned. Understand it, respect it, and leave it its river. That is not an invitation to wade in with it, because no crocodilian is owed that kind of trust. It is the difference between a species we save and one we lose to fear.

The unmistakable snout

No crocodilian is easier to identify. The gharial's snout is a long, impossibly thin tube of bone, several times longer than it is wide, lined with over a hundred fine, sharp, interlocking teeth. It is the most specialised jaw in the whole crocodilian order, and it is built for one task only: to sweep sideways through the water with almost no resistance and snap shut on a fish. One task. That narrow, delicate architecture is the opposite of the broad crushing jaw of a mugger or a saltie. It is a fishing implement, and it would shatter against the work of gripping and drowning a large mammal. The animal is large (a big male can exceed five metres) but its length is all river and fish, not menace.