Critically Endangered
Ganges shark
Glyphis gangeticus
Ganges shark is a shark or ray in the family Carcharhinidae (order Carcharhiniformes) — Glyphis gangeticus, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
A typical requiem shark in its external appearance, it is stocky, with two spineless dorsal fins and an anal fin. The second dorsal fin is relatively large, but much smaller than the first (about half the height). A longitudinal upper precaudal pit is seen, but no interdorsal ridge.
Its size at birth is 56 to 61 cm (22 to 24 in), growing to an estimated 178 cm (70 in) at maturity, with a maximum size of about 204 cm (80 in).
Range and habitat
The Ganges shark, as its name suggests, is largely restricted to the rivers of eastern and northeastern India, particularly the Hooghly River of West Bengal, and the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Mahanadi in Bihar, Assam, and Odisha, respectively. It is typically found in the middle to lower reaches of a river. One found in 2018 in a Mumbai fish market may have come from somewhere along the banks of the Arabian Sea.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Sharks and rays grow slowly and have few young. A fishery that treats them as bycatch can empty a coastal form.
In crisis
The species remains poorly known and is very rare throughout its range. G. Gangeticus is one of 20 sharks on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Red List of endangered shark species. The species is currently classified as critically endangered.
Overfishing, habitat degradation from pollution, increasing river use, and management among them the construction of dams and barrages, are the principal threats. Habitat degradation may pose a further threat to this shark, among them water pollution and the clearing of mangrove trees for fuel, construction materials, and other products.
Ganges shark is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Ganges shark, Wikidata item Q1471147. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
