#i tried to look up the best transliteration for ड़ and wiki just said no equivalent in english

[metamatar]

Range of the gharial in 2019 in black

A miniature illustration of the Baburnama showing a gharial, ca. 1598, National Museum, New Delhi

Adult males have a distinct boss at the end of the snout, which resembles an earthenware pot known as a घड़ा (gharha) hence the name "gharial".

The wild gharial population has declined drastically since the 1930s and is limited to only 2% of its historical range. Loss of habitat because of sand mining and conversion to agriculture, depletion of fish resources and detrimental fishing methods continue to threaten the population.

In 2017, the global population was estimated to comprise at maximum 900 individuals, including about 600 mature adults in six major subpopulations along 1,100 km (680 mi) of river courses and another 50 mature adults in eight minor subpopulations along 1,200 km (750 mi) of river courses.

The genus Gavialis probably originated in the region of India and Pakistan in the Early Miocene. Fossil gharial remains excavated in the Sivalik Hills of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are dated to between the Pliocene and the Early Pleistocene.

The earliest known depictions of the gharial date to the Indus Valley civilisation. Seals and tablets show gharials with fish in their mouths and surrounded by fish. A tablet shows a deity flanked by a gharial and a fish. These pieces are about 4,000 years old and were found at Mohenjo-daro and Amri, Sindh.

A gharial is depicted on one of the rock carvings on a pillar of the Sanchi Stupa, which dates to the 3rd century BC. In Hindu mythology, the gharial is the vehicle of the river deity Gaṅgā and of the wind and sea deity Varuna.

In the 16th-century book Baburnama, Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur accounted of a gharial sighting in the Ghaghara River between Ghazipur and Benares in 1526.