Page 49 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #04
P. 49
TOP Photos by Dhritiman Mukherjee
ebruary fog blankets the wide River Chambal
OF THE in northern India and shrouds from view the
settlements along its banks. A new tension fills
CROCODILE the air. Until now, one particularly impressive
scarred 5m-long male gharial, sporting a
magnificent bulbous lump called a ghara on
F the end of his long snout, has been civil. He
has been lazing alongside his fellow gharials as their dark
hides soak up the rays. But now, suddenly, he can’t bear
the sight of another big male.
The rival reptiles rise out of the water with their snouts
in the air, sizing each other up. They nip one another,
taking the skin off the slender jaws. Blood oozes from
puncture wounds in the ghara; the delicate snouts of
gharials can’t withstand violent ramming. When neither
animal backs off, the contest progresses to a wrestling
match. The mighty combatants jostle for hours until one
succeeds in mounting the other.
Not only do India’s fish-eating gharials look The defeated rival surges forwards in a serpentine
movement, possibly to shake the other off his back. He
strange, they make unusually attentive concedes this round and watches the victor patrol his
fiefdom. Snorting noisily, the dominant individual shows
mums and dads. These reptiles are among off his size by arching his back and his tail’s serrated
horny plates, called scutes, above the water. The trounced
the best in the world, says Janaki Lenin. male tests his mettle again and again over the next few
