Page 83 - World of Animals - Deadly Predators
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Piranhas
7. Why do piranhas 11. Do all piranhas eat meat?
Some species are vegetarian!
hunt in packs? These gentle fish, called pacus,
These razor-mouthed fish are have swapped flesh for nuts and
scaredy cats! When scientists seeds. Fruit trees like pacus so
compared pairs of piranhas to much that they try to attract their
attention by making scented
groups of piranhas, they spotted
oils. The fish eat the trees’ fruit,
differences in their behaviour. Rather helping to spread their seeds.
than becoming more aggressive in
bigger groups, the fish got calmer.
Their breathing slowed down, and
they were faster to recover when
12. Can piranhas strip
they thought a predator might be a cow carcass in
nearby. So, while a shoal of piranhas under a minute?
might look like a deadly attack American president
squad, it seems that they actually Theodore Roosevelt
famously said that he’d
group together because it makes
seen a shoal of piranha
them feel safe.
wolf down an entire
cow. The water fizzed
8. Do piranhas with activity and ran red
with blood. It’s certainly
make any noise? possible, but it’s not
Piranhas have an organ called a common. Piranhas only
swim bladder that helps them to feed like that if food is
scarce, and the ones
control their depth in the water, a
bit like a float. It also allows them to Roosevelt saw had been
trapped and starved for
bark a warning to other fish. When
the occasion.
they’re feeding or fighting, they
contract muscles near to their swim
bladder, making it vibrate.
9. What does the word ‘piranha’ mean? 13. How hard can a piranha bite?
The word comes from the Tupian Black piranhas can bite down with
languages of South America, where a force more than 30 times their
‘pira’ means fish and ‘ranha’ means body weight. Pound for pound, this
tooth. So, the word ‘piranha’ literally outmatches alligators, great white
means ‘tooth-fish’. sharks and T-rex.
14. What’s the deadliest type of piranha?
The black piranha is the largest piranha in the
world and has the strongest bite force, clocking
in at 320 newtons (72 pounds).
15. How many species of living piranha
10. Does anything eat piranhas? are there?
Piranhas might be deadly, but they’re not quite at So far, scientists have found at least 28
the top of the food chain. Piranha predators include
caimans, river dolphins, crocodiles, storks and us. A carnivorous piranha species, but there © All images across spread: Getty
pack of piranhas might be capable of taking on a large
animal, but in reality, they’re more scared of us than we could be more than 60 – no one is
are of them.
really sure.
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