Director Sukhee Boonsang said the two false gharials were of different sizes and were spotted in the wild in the southern border province of Narathiwat in January. “The evidence shows that there are at least two false gharials in the ecosystem of the Tak Bai swamp forest. False gharials, or thin-snouted freshwater crocodiles, were indigenous in Southeast Asia and were found in southern Thailand, Malaysia and on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo in Indonesia, he said. In Thailand, researchers had only stories and the tracks made by false gharials to work with. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the reptile as an endangered species, on its Red List, with fewer than 2,500 fully grown false gharials recorded worldwide.

Source: Bangkok Post February 15, 2026 14:35 UTC