Would you like a gharial on your wall?

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When we toured the Royal Palace Museum in Kathmandu, we saw quite a few stuffed animal heads on the walls and two complete tigers standing on their hind legs either side of a staircase. On one wall was the preserved head and skin of a gavial or gharial (Gavialis gangeticus). The males of this fish-eating crocodile have a bulbous growth on the end of the nose. It is the only crocodile species which has visible differences between the sexes. The gavial is native to the Indian subcontinent but now found in only 2% of their former range. It is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They average 11 to 15 feet in length and weigh between 350 and 400 pounds. As the animal grows, the snout appears shorter and thicker. The growth on the end of the snout is called the ghara (meaning 'mud pot'). When the male hisses through the ghara, the sound is amplified and, on a still day, can be heard for almost a kilometre. They can’t walk but slide on their bellies. Although the jaws are large with dozens of needle-sharp teeth, they are thin and fragile and not adapted to dealing with large animals. Food consists of mostly fish, snakes, frogs, and crustaceans. I knew about this animal but had forgotten about it until seeing it on the wall. Don’t you think it is unusual? Photo courtesy Wikimedia: I, Jonathan Zander [CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)]