Ganges shark
species of fish
The Ganges shark (Glyphis gangeticus) is a critically endangered species of requiem shark found in the Ganges River (including the Padma River) and the Brahmaputra River of India and Bangladesh. Additionally, genetic evidence has shown that both the Borneo river shark (G. fowlerae) and Irrawaddy river shark (G. siamensis) should be regarded as synonyms of the Ganges shark, expanding the range of the species to Pakistan, Myanmar, Borneo, and Java. The species remains poorly known and is very rare throughout its range.
Glyphis are often confused with the more common bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas), which also inhabits the Ganges River and is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Ganges shark.
Taxonomy
Formerly, the Borneo river shark (Glyphis fowlerae) and the Irrawaddy river shark (Glyphis siamensis) were considered to represent two other species in the genus Glyphis. They have recently been reclassified as G. gangeticus based on genetic studies, and their scientific names are treated as synonyms.
The Borneo river shark is known only from the Kinabatangan River in Borneo. It can reach a length of 78 cm (31 in). Only 13 specimens are known to science, all collected in 1996. Expeditions in 2010 and 2011 failed to find any, and while fishermen recognised the shark, they have not been seen for many years.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ganges shark” is species of fish. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ganges, shark and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1471147. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1996, 2010 and 2011.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ganges shark” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.