
恒河食鱼鳄的
Finally, let us note that the Gharialitself, Gavialis gangeticus,is not necessarily a small animal [adjacent image, from wikipedia, shows acaptive False gharial]. A Gharial skull at Munich is 77.3 cm long (making itthe third longest modern crocodilian skull), but again its total length was notrecorded. Of course, there are tales of giants that were measured whole: analleged 7 m specimen was shot on the Kosi River in 1924, a 6.6 m longindividual on the Gogra River in 1920, and a 6.4 m animal was killed in theCheko River in 1934. I have no idea whether these lengths were ever verified.It is well known that gharials have occasionally been found with jewellery intheir stomachs, but this has been attributed to their possibly feeding on theremains of funerals, or even on picking up such objects for use as gastroliths.However, big gharials are not limited to a diet of small prey as they arealleged to sometimes take goats and feral dogs. There are a couple ofauthenticated attacks on humans: 55 year old Sankara Behera was attacked by onein 1979 at the Satkoshia Gorge Sanctuary (Bustard & Singh 1981). It grabbedhis arm and he fell into the river; his son rescued him and he later recovered.A few other people have been bitten (Steel 1989), but these attacks mostly seemto have been motivated by territoriality or nest-defence.
Note how I cleverly avoided even mentioningthe phylogenetic affinities of Tomistoma andGavialis,easily the most controversial areas in crocodilian evolutionary biology.
Refs– –
Alderton, D. 1991. Crocodiles& Alligators of the World. Blandford, London.
Bustard, H. R. & Singh, L. A. K. 1981.Gharial attacks on man. Journal of Bombay NaturalHistory Society 78,610-611.
Guggisberg, C. A. W. 1972. Crocodiles:Their Natural History, Folklore and Conservation. David &Charles, Newton Abbot.
Head, J. J. 2001. Systematics and body sizeof the gigantic, enigmatic crocodyloidRhamphosuchuscrassidens, and the faunal history of Siwalik group (Miocene)crocodilians.Journal of VertebratePaleontology 21(Supp. to No. 3), 59.
McAliley, L. R., Willis, R. E., Ray, D. A.,White, P. S., Brochu, C. A. & Densmore, L. D. 2006. Are crocodiles reallymonophyletic? – Evidence for subdivisions from sequence and morphological data. MolecularPhylogenetics and Evolution 39,16-32.
Steel, R. 1989. Crocodiles.Christopher Helm, London.
慕尼黑博物馆的恒河鳄头骨长77.3厘米(使它第三长的现代鳄鱼头骨),但又总长度没有记录。当然,有一些巨大生物的传言:一个所谓的7米的样本在1924年戈西河的镜头,哥格拉河1920年一个长6.6米的个体,和一个6.4米的动物在1934年契科河身亡。我不知道这些长度是否曾经被验证过。众所周知,恒河鳄偶尔被发现在它们胃里的珠宝,但这已被归因于它们可能对葬礼后遗体的啃食,甚至拿来作为胃石等对象。然而,大型恒河鳄不限于捕食小猎物,宣称它们有时捕食山羊和野狗。有几个真实可靠的对人类的攻击事例,55岁的SankaraBehera 被袭击,恒河鳄抓住了他的胳膊,他掉进了河里,他的儿子救了他,他后来康复了。其他几人被咬伤,但这些攻击大部分似乎是出于保护领地或护巢。

