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Tomistoma schlegelii
"The false gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii), also known as the Malayan gharial, or false gavial is a freshwater crocodile of the Crocodylidae family with a very thin and elongated snout. The false gharial is listed as an endangered species by IUCN as the population is estimated at below 2,500 mature individuals. Until recently very little has been known about the diet or behavior of the false gharial within the wild, but thanks to some research on the part of biologists details are slowly being revealed. It has come to the attention of biologists that the false gharial's diet is much more varied than they had originally thought. Until now the false gharial was thought to have a diet similar to its relative the true gharial, i.e. only fish and very small vertebrates, but new evidence and occurrences have proven that the false gharial's broader snout has enabled larger individuals to prey on larger vertebrates including Proboscis monkeys, long-tailed macaques, deer and fruit bats. At the end of 2008, a ±4 m female false gharial attacked and [consumed] a fisherman in central Kalimantan, whose remains were found in the gharial's stomach."
Captive at the Riverbanks Zoo and Garden in Columbia.
Spotted on Nov 6, 2010
Submitted on Nov 12, 2012
2 Comments
I was surprised as well, and I agree that the author of the Wiki article used misleading wording. Thanks for the comment, I reckon I'll reword that sentence in my description.
Very interesting -- I was surprised to read the last sentence of your description so I chased down the reference http://www.iucncsg.org/365_docs/attachme... I somehow missed hearing about this! I had surveyed the same general area in 1990 for crocodiles and found evidence of large Tomistoma but I never heard of attacks on humans, much less predation. The article says upon dissection "The man’s remains were instantly recognisable" but the two photographs included only show the exterior of the large Tomistoma. While it sounds somewhat anecdotal I suppose a large Tomistoma could kill, dismember and eat an adult human, and the article says human remains were found in the vicinity (as well as inside the crocodile). I think Wikipedia has gone too far in saying "swallowed a fisherman" because that conjures up an entirely different image like that of a huge python with detached jaws, and crocodiles don't swallow large prey whole.