So many teeth in the river

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Jhon the herper
Posts: 8
Joined: April 18th, 2018, 11:18 pm

So many teeth in the river

Post by Jhon the herper »

I feel that I have been able to take a dream trip to the Chambal River. This has remained one of the most pristine water habitats in all of India because outlaws controlled the area for decades and everyone was afraid to go there. Also there was some guy who sacrificed 400 cows in the river or something (maybe) so everyone thought the water was cursed. It meant that many animals have survived here that didn't survive anywhere else!

We got on our boats to begin our trip down the river. The river does not look like so much it is just wide calm water with dirt banks and a little bit of vegetation. But you can see right away that there are animals on the banks, at first like birds and then turtles and then so much more.

This is a River Lapwing.

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I don't know what birds are special or not so I just picked the pictures I liked. Maybe we saw rare species and I don't even know because they were bland!



It wasn't long before we saw our first crocodile in the water!

mugger crocodile

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It was much better to see them on land

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You can see we are close but not so close

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Then we saw babies

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Besides the crocodiles I wanted to see some new species of turtle and I was not disappointed. This is called an indian tent turtle.

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Mostly the turtles did not get scared when we passed but I think one or two times they did.

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The Great Thick-Knee, which is kind of an embarrassing name to have, and he looks as if he knows it.

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It was most exciting when we saw our first gharial! These are the big highlights of the trip. This one had some sort of homing beacon on it though so maybe they knew exactly where to find it.

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Again we are close but not too close even though a gharial cannot hurt you as their mouths are so long and skinny and weak. They are very big though! This was an average one maybe less than three meters but some of them looked more than four meters!

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This is a long-legged buzzard, also not the most fortunate name. He casts his eyes down in shame.

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Pretty soon we realized that we did not need to have been afraid of maybe not seeing anything as there was so much! We saw dozens of crocodiles and dozens of gharials and maybe a hundred turtles. We even saw a Ganges River Dolphin but it went up and down too fast to get a picture. I will just show the rest of the pics.

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Eurasian Sparrowhawk

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Spoonbill

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Osprey

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Little Ringed Plover

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Eagle I forget...maybe Bonelli's Eagle?

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The big unexpected highlight of the trip was to see a Jungle Cat!!! It was just drinking from the cursed water so calmly or at least pretending to.

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Black Ibis

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River Tern

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Pied Kingfishers

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Bengal Monitor really showing his ass

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There were a hundred turtles but they were all the same turtle until we finally saw two softshell turtles, I think ganges softshell turtle

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He was outnumbered and had no chance, no chance at all. But he looks like he is creeping.

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Okay, that was all! I try to post even more on my facebook but we'll see.

https://www.facebook.com/jhon.damuppet.9
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scottriv
Posts: 115
Joined: February 6th, 2012, 7:24 pm

Re: So many teeth in the river

Post by scottriv »

That was pretty cool!!

Thanks for sharing!
Jhon the herper
Posts: 8
Joined: April 18th, 2018, 11:18 pm

Re: So many teeth in the river

Post by Jhon the herper »

scottriv wrote:That was pretty cool!!

Thanks for sharing!
thank you! :thumb:


What made our trip even more amazing was all the animals we saw outside the river. We got to wander around some from the guesthouse we were staying in and saw stuff day and night. I told the guides what I had seen and they said I had seen everything, that no one had ever seen as much as me! It wasn’t true though – I never did see a fox, which I really did want to see, and I did not find a jackal either. I did find most of everything else that can be expected late in the year. It was colder and dry so there were no snakes, no snakes at all.

I do not have much time to explain so I will just post photos of my favorite animals. These were all found in about 24 hours of herping and mammaling before and after our trip to the river, mostly in agricultural habitat or small stands of trees surrounded by agricultural habitat.

Some species here are:

Indian Hedgehog
Common Palm Civet
Nilgai
Blackbuck
Jungle Cat
Indian Grey Mongoose
Indian Hare
Indian Flying Fox
Kushmore’s House Gecko
Yellow-green House Gecko
Common Garden Lizard
Brown Hawk Owl
Spotted Owlet
Barred Buttonquail
Hoopoe
Indian Roller
I forget the raptors...I wrote it down but I left my notes at home. There are at least three more species in those photos

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And the final highlight....my second jungle cat in one day!!!

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Curtis Hart
Posts: 595
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 5:07 pm
Location: Hillsdale County, Michigan

Re: So many teeth in the river

Post by Curtis Hart »

The Chambal River is a great place! That is a huge male Gharial! I was there in '09 and my Mom and brother went a couple years ago, everyone had a great trip. I would have loved to have seen the Hedgehog and Blackbuck.
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jonathan
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Re: So many teeth in the river

Post by jonathan »

Curtis Hart wrote:The Chambal River is a great place! That is a huge male Gharial! I was there in '09 and my Mom and brother went a couple years ago, everyone had a great trip. I would have loved to have seen the Hedgehog and Blackbuck.
I think it has to be one of the most untouched wildlife spots in Uttar Pradesh.
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Kelly Mc
Posts: 4529
Joined: October 18th, 2011, 1:03 pm

Re: So many teeth in the river

Post by Kelly Mc »

I said God when I saw the Gharial. Just like I would if I saw it in real life.

Great post thank you for sharing here.
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BillMcGighan
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Joined: June 7th, 2010, 9:23 am
Location: Unicoi, TN

Re: So many teeth in the river

Post by BillMcGighan »

Lots of good stuff Jhon, but the Gharials alone where special.
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Porter
Posts: 2418
Joined: March 19th, 2011, 7:43 pm

Re: So many teeth in the river

Post by Porter »

Awesome photos :thumb: really like those shots of the gharial. Gavials have always been my favorite Crocs. The toad and basking soft-shell as well!
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