Talk:Gharial

Untitled
evolving in the estuaries and coastal waters of Africa, but crossing the Atlantic to reach South America as well. A note on Eocene geography at this point might show how little crossing was involved: more like opposite coasts of the Red Sea.--Wetman 23:56, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

> Some parts of the article spell it Ghariyal, others Gharial.. Which is correct? Should it not be uniform?

> This might be because the correct Hindi Language pronounciation for the word is closer to Ghariyal than to Gharial. Maybe a foot-note be added to this effect if all the instances of the word be ammended to Gharial?
 * From what I know, "gharial" is how we spell it in English, and that "gavial" was what the guy who described the critter mispelled it as.--Mr Fink 04:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, is the giant gharial Rhamphosuchus crassidens or R. indicus?--Mr Fink 04:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

"The snout becomes progressively thinner the older the gharial gets." I'm curious--does it get thinner in absolute terms or just in relation to the rest of the beast? Rivertorch 05:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Introduced or Feral populations?
I'm wondering if there are any established feral or otherwise introduced populations of Gharial existing outside of the animal's natural distribution range (In the Americas? Australia? Africa? etc). Anyone know? I've heard that there are Nile Crocodiles in Florida, U.S.A. so I'm thinking that there may be Gharial populations out there, too. Or, are gharials too specific for their niche to survive outside of their natural range? Thanks.

Copyvio?
Some of the information on this page is strikingly similar to this page: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/cnhc/csp_ggan.htm -Insouciance 18:11, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The similar sections look adequately paraphrased to me, but, if there are sentences or phrases that are too similar, please point them out or fix them. Enuja 21:44, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation
I suggest adding the kind of pronunciation aid one finds in most dictionaries to the initial article opening right after the name. Anyone know how to properly pronounce the name of this creature?

24.8.106.182 (talk) 12:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, dictionary form would be ˈgərēəl. However; the Hindi from which it comes is घड़ियाल (IAST: ghaṛiyāl), (IPA: gʰəɽɪɑl) - warning, my IPA is quite rudimentary. Also, to a comment above, gavial (ˈgāvēəl) was a French rendering of the Hindi which was also absorbed into English. All pronunciations I gave are American English, by the way. Sorry, i don't know if there are variations, but I wouldn't doubt it. Khirad (talk) 19:01, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Man-eaters section
I seriously considered getting rid of the man-eaters section and putting "Danger to Humans" or something like that as a sub-heading in "Diet." Unfortunately, I don't know where to put the recent addition "The most dangerous (and in most cases, the only dangerous) aspect of the Gharial is the animal's long and extremely powerful tail, which is more than capable of knocking a full grown man to the ground and even breaking bones." if I do that. What I'm going to do is put a citation needed tag on that sentence, and if there isn't a citation added in the near future, I'll delete it and remove the man-eaters section. Enuja 21:44, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. "Man eaters" is a little hyperbolic for an encyclopedia. Dinoguy2 01:44, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I done did it. ;-)  If anyone can come up with a better section heading for this stuff under "Diet," please do so.  I'm not entirely happy with the heading.  Enuja 02:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

False Gharial
If you'll look at the article, it states that the False Gharial IS realted to the Gharial, in fact, even closly related. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.173.195.17 (talk) 13:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Lurking ?
The caption on one of the 1st images shows a gharial with its mouth open and states 'gharial lurking'. I doubt it is "lurking" (which would imply it is awaiting for a prey - and considering the diet consists mainly of aquatic/fish this seems quite unlikely) - rather it looks like it is resting and thermo-regulating. Ivan Scott Warren (talk) 19:48, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Monotypic genus or not?
Is this species considered to belong to a monotypic genus is it the only living member of this genus?

Indian language
This article currently contains the following text "The bulbous growth on the tip of the male's snout is called a 'ghara' (after the Indian word meaning 'pot') . . ." The problem with this is there's no such language as "Indian" Does anyone know what language the word actually comes from? For the possible choices see Languages of India. --Steven J. Anderson (talk) 03:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This sentence is cited from the source; Whitaker did not explain 'ghara' any further. I have added an explanation with ref. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 14:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The word ghara and cognates are found in many north Indian dialects of Hindi - references like this one state it as Hindi. Shyamal (talk) 16:53, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Contradictory taxonomy
The lead says the Gharial is the only surviving member of the family Gavialidae. The taxonomy section, however, says that the False gharial is also in the family Gavialidae. These can't both be correct. Kaldari (talk) 22:01, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Gastroliths were found
I have a journal, it is called "Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society", it includes the incidences when Gastroliths, ornaments were found in there stomachs. Sometimes they had no food, but stones in the stomach. Bladesmulti (talk) 14:12, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I replaced your ref because you did not mention the article's author, year of publication, nor title -- see how to cite. This info about gastroliths is contained in the ref I used as well. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 11:14, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Journals usually don't mention a singular author, if they are published by university. Year of publication was available though. And title was same as mentioned above. So we can use 2 refs. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:09, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Esperanto
I've removed the claim about the Esperanto meaning in popular culture, as the main source I could find was the (Es) Vikipedia article, which was uncited. If you know of a reliable source for the claim, feel free to put it back with a citation. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:02, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

'Characteristics' section
At the section, there is a line which, directly quoting, says 'Males develop a hollow bulbous nasal protuberance or at sexual maturity.' Why is there an 'or'? Is this an error? If not, can someone explain? I don't understand. The Average Wikipedian (talk) 14:08, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

You should include Romulus Whitaker in the conservation section of the page. He was one of the people who started the effort to protect gharials. Also to include more up to date information from gharial conservation website.Feelthebern2016 (talk) 16:16, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Why I put in links to Valmiki National Park and Gandaki River
On Wednesday, an attack by a crocodilian (I suspect a Mugger crocodile) was reported in Bihar's West Champaran district, in the Gandaki, but obviously, I do not want to violate any copyright. Anyways, I used these references to get close to the topic, in the article about Valmiki National Park. Leo1pard (talk) 06:29, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Fossil range contradiction
The fossil range for the gharial says it's from the late Eocene, 33 something million years ago, but the fossil range for Gavialis is in the early Miocene. Which is in error?--Mr Fink (talk) 01:02, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

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minor fixes
Just reading through this fascinating recommendation, noting a couple of ideas here as I go.
 * lead
 * average body length … think that is the range, but good to have both.
 * Boss (engineering), link to a glossary if it exists, or not at all
 * Behaviour and ecology
 * convert cm to feet or m to feet? This is mixed in a sentence, perhaps from selecting the most appropriate unit in the other system, but I think the convention is to stick to mm and cm to inches or feet.

I prefer seeing other species given the binomial, perhaps in parentheses after the turtle or bird's common name, and appreciated seeing that the extinct species being included. Back later for another look. cygnis insignis 10:03, 16 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for encouraging comments, !! Addressed them all, I think, with recent revisions. Cheerio -- BhagyaMani (talk) 15:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Suggestions
Adding a few suggestions here. Structural initially, will look over contents later as I collate and read references. Shyamal (talk) 08:10, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Lead - all citations need to go out of this and it needs to be a more inclusive summary of the remainder of the article.

Sections: It seems to me that taxonomy really ought to come up earlier as in most other taxon articles.

Palaeontological classification - this title would suggest that there are other kinds of classification which I think is a bit odd. The long list seems to be a big unsightly given that it has too much unused white space to its right. Much of this could probably be summarized into a cladogram that sits on the right side - if a time scale needs to be shown with extinction bars - the cladogram template may be inappropriate and a suitable SVG illustration could be created (I am happy to help here if we can find sources). I feel that not every species under the subfamilies need to be listed. The "Evolution" section could be included in a single larger "Taxonomy and systematics" or "Evolution and classification" section.

Local names may be better incorporated into a "In culture" section with more than just names, perhaps etymology, mythology, depictions in local art, and other associations could go there.

Characteristics - starting off with adult characteristics might be more natural. The life cycle description can come later.

Distribution and habitat - the bulleted river basins list may be better converted to a single paragraph - this would also be best to have alongside a good map indicating historical distribution and current distributions along with conservation sites.
 * Thanks a ton, Shyamal!!


 * Re taxonomy section: I had moved this down as long as it was rudimentary. If you think it's complete now, I agree to move it up.
 * Re Palaeontological classification: yes, I agree this long list is somewhat out of place. There is a similar one on the Gavialidae page. So I assume that someone has copy-pasted it from there loong time ago. I would even like to remove the list, the more so there is an int link to this page in the taxobox. Imo, it would be sufficient to reference that gharial is part of this family, e.g. by Adams (1854).
 * Re in culture section: ok. Frankly, I wasn’t much interested in this to date, and am therefore not aware whether any myths or pics in art exist.
 * Here is a resource - https://www.harappa.com/sites/default/files/pdf/Parpola_Asko_2011._Crocodile_in_the_Indu.pdf and Tell Asmar https://oi-idb-static.uchicago.edu/multimedia/1076/oic16.pdf Shyamal (talk) 12:57, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Cheers for now. – BhagyaMani (talk) 10:05, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Will restructure characteristics asap.
 * Re bulleted list in Distribution and habitat: hmm, I’ve put quite some effort into collating the info about the river basins with presence of gharial, and presenting it so that it provides an easy overview that can be updated anytime. The map of the IUCN RL account is imo not appropriate, because it does not show layers where gharial used to be present. Perhaps a table is an option, with 3 maps of a) Terai and Gangetic plains, b) Eastern Ghats and c) NE India?
 * Have you seen this - apparently shows a gharial - ref - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tarun_Nair2/publication/262764522_Dry-season_assessment_of_gharials_Gavialis_gangeticus_in_the_Betwa_Ken_and_Son_Rivers_India/links/00b49538c86e96d4ab000000.pdf Shyamal (talk) 09:19, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I did and also referenced it, see section Distribution and habitat in the list *Son River. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:25, 30 May 2019 (UTC)


 * new free paper on its sexual dimorphism out: https://peerj.com/articles/9134/?fbclid=IwAR0X-e4Ywczh8XfMd24wVO8N1iG7lAOCFDQZEltOPNhFkTocPMif9yHp374 FunkMonk (talk) 09:39, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Palaeontological classification links
It may supposed to be like this but, the link for Tomistoma lusitanica, takes me too Tomistoma schlegelii, I just wanted to make sure it was supposed to be like that instead of trying too edit it, when I don't know the facts. Mrcoffeecups (talk) 04:14, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Expansion of Size Section
Greetings, It is to my utter disappointment that this article states contradictory statments about gharial’s body mass (at 160 kg or 350 lb). In the wiki page of largest organisms (section of heaviest living reptiles), its average mass is mentioned as 250 kg (550 lb). There are several pages in the internet claming it to weigh up to 680 kg (1,500 lb). Even in the National Geographic page, it is stated that it can weigh up to 2,000 lbs (907 kg). Maybe it is a mere estimation, but I have seen National Geographic pages as references in some other crocodilian pages. Kindly contribute to improve as crocodilians are known to exceed other predators in terms of size & body mass. Thank you. Adpr99 (talk) 18:01, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I recommend you download + read the articles yourself that are referenced on this page for body mass and size. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 19:23, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Okay, lets assume the sources are accurate. But, there has to be some mention about possible maximum size and mass. Its not that convinient to read a gharial close to 6 m weighing only 160 kg. There has to be some mention of maximum possible mass along with average, thats all. Other than that, great work with collecting sources, hats off. Adpr99 (talk) 15:41, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Common name
Read Common name and COMMONNAME to understand that ONE website and ONE article using a different name than the commonly used one over decades does make this new name a common name. – BhagyaMani (talk) 17:53, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Common name doesn't provide much clarity here other than to say that a species can have many common names. And the policy at COMMONNAME is only applicable to article titles. Finally, provided more than ONE reference, but rather three references.  Additionally, I did a quick google search and I am seeing other sources that mention Indian Gharial as a common name. I think it should be included. Cougroyalty (talk) 21:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * A common name is one that is commonly used in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources. The present list of 113 referenced sources is perhaps not complete, but represents the most important publications on the gharial in its range and covers about a century. Only 4 of those references use 'Indian gharial' in their titles. That is not a significant majority. – BhagyaMani (talk) 07:25, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Two of the publications linked in Bromar00's edit are by one and the same author and refer to one and the same book chapter, which is ALREADY referenced on this page, see present ref 73. – BhagyaMani (talk) 07:25, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The third link in Bromar00's edit is a promotional website. Websites that provide additional information on the subject can be used in the section *External links*, but NOT if they contain advertisements. – BhagyaMani (talk) 07:26, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Since thanked me for reverting Bromar00's edit, I assume that you agree. Please comment. – BhagyaMani (talk) 07:27, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I trust BhagyMani's judgements in these matters, and I haven't seen any sources that refer to it as the "Indian gharial," either.--Mr Fink (talk) 15:06, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Couple of observations, the common names I find presented for Gavialis sp. are this title and 'false gharial', which sounds anachronistic from a neutral or worldview sense. What I wish to see is an origin of the name gharial, and how it accords with this species, ~ cygnis insignis 15:20, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * See section *Characteristics* 3rd paragraph, 2nd sentence + ref therein. – BhagyaMani (talk) 15:31, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * cool, ta! I made a note with that, if I find another mention I'll be back. ~ cygnis insignis 16:09, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I have provided a fourth and very reliable reference BhagyaMani. Refusal of it will be a clear indication in not caring about right information, and only caring about information you like for one reason or the other Bromar00 (talk) 19:51, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Since you have less than 90 edits under your belt, you may not yet be familiar with some WP guidelines? See e.g. MOS:LEAD: this section serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents and the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic. So what makes a name notable + important enough for the lead that has been mentioned in only 4 of 113 references? – BhagyaMani (talk) 09:01, 2 February 2022 (UTC)


 * It's been 4 days now that Bromar00 did not respond and is obviously not interested in resolving this dissent. I'll therefore remove their poorly referenced source and revert to the last best version that accords with this page's WP:GA status. BhagyaMani (talk) 09:10, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Several wikipedians put a lot of thought into developing and making templates available to the WP community, e.g. cite journal and cite book. I recommend Bromar00 to learn WP:CITEHOW and how to use templates before adding refs to articles. BhagyaMani (talk) 09:52, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I added the name "Indian Gharial" in the text, the RS explicitly states that is a common name. What other 'gharial' it distinguishes this species from is still unclear. My automatic ref fill gizmo is not working, but fortunately the source was already there. ~ cygnis insignis 12:26, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * When it was first used in the 1970s, then by 2 Indian biologists who referred to gharial studied in India. But I have never seen Nepali scientists referring to gharial studied in Nepal as 'Nepalese gharial'. If they did, would the use of an adjective make this combination a common name? – BhagyaMani (talk) 13:16, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Aha! A legacy of a different taxonomic arrangement or some form of regional types would explain that. ~ cygnis insignis 13:22, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Gharial in India and Nepal do not differ in morphology, and nobody described them as 2 distinct subspecies. Therefore, my argument is that 'Indian gharial' merely refers to the Indian population, but not to the species as such. – BhagyaMani (talk) 13:28, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I made a series of changes, each small to allow review, the source of the cladogram used the terms for discussion of the relationship to the other crocodilian exhibiting extreme specialisation. The term Malayan might also be seen as misleading, except as 'not the Indian', but that is not unusual in attempts to align common names to scientific descriptions. ~ cygnis insignis 14:30, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Re review: do you mean peer review? If so, then yes, I also thought about this as step for FAC. – BhagyaMani (talk) 14:42, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I meant review by contributors and followers of the discussion, BhagyaMani especially because they have invested a lot of time in improving this article. ~ cygnis insignis 15:14, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Cladogram
I agree to Cougroyalty's revert and too think that the common names should be used for clarity. – BhagyaMani (talk) 17:16, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * But only one common name it seems. That edit was supported by directly quoting the source of the cladogram. Are we not in the middle of a discussion about that, it seems I was wasting time. ~ cygnis insignis 17:37, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, one common name, i.e. the one used in the title of both pages. – BhagyaMani (talk) 17:42, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * It is less clear, not more. What guideline states explicitly that a reliable source contradicting that "one common name" is to be ignored and censored? It is a fact that multiple common names exist, in the context of that cladogram the authors distinguish the two existing species names with those terms. ~ cygnis insignis 17:56, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * This has 0 to do with 'censorship'! For the Tomistoma gharial, the most commonly used name over many decades has been false gharial, but very rarely 'Malayan gharial' : just look at the references in that page. And a cladogram is not the appropriate place to add all common names that have eventually been used for the species. – BhagyaMani (talk) 18:10, 6 February 2022 (UTC)


 * "The name 'Indian gharial' has occasionally been used for gharial populations in India". is not supported by the citation to the 1977 note on etymology. ~ cygnis insignis 11:44, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It was indeed Bustard 1977 : changed this. – BhagyaMani (talk) 11:52, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The name Indian Gharial is in the title, I see no discussion within the article on its use. How is it supporting the alleged fact of your latest revision? ~ cygnis insignis 14:29, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I added this name to the section *Etymology*, and do not understand your question. – BhagyaMani (talk) 15:09, 7 February 2022 (UTC)