The ghara, named after the Hindi word for an earthenware pot, forms over the nostrils of males at sexual maturity. It is a soft-tissue structure, and the bony hollow beneath it leaves a distinctive depression on the skull, which allows the sex of a gharial to be determined from bone alone.
Field observers describe males producing a low buzzing hiss during display, with the ghara apparently modifying the sound and generating bubbles at the water surface. Because only mature males carry one, it also serves as a visible signal of maturity. No other living crocodilian has such a pronounced sex-specific snout structure.
The species is Critically Endangered. Adults number in the hundreds across a much-reduced range centred on the Chambal and a few other rivers, and the pressures are dams and barrages, sand mining that removes nesting banks, and entanglement in fishing gear. The acoustic function of the ghara is inferred from observation rather than demonstrated experimentally.