Steamed fish, braised fish, grilled fish... There are many ways for humans to eat fish, but there is a fish in the Amazon River, and humans can't avoid it, which is a frightening piranha.
The piranha has long, triangular teeth and has a strong bite force, and can easily tear off a large piece of flesh as the body swings from side to side. If an animal is unfortunate enough to be bitten by a piranha, after a while, the life that is alive and jumping will become a sensen bone.
Why did such a ferocious and terrible piranha fail to dominate the Amazon River? Do they still have natural enemies to fear?
Piranhas, "Werewolves in the Water"
Piranhas, also known as piranhas, or piranhas, are indeed not good-looking, with a flat body equipped with a skull as hard as iron. As soon as your mouth opens, you can see a mouth full of fangs that is really scary. Adult piranhas look almost identical and are difficult to distinguish.
The bright green on the back is particularly eye-catching, and the red and green on the abdomen is particularly cheesy. Adult fish are also small, only 15-24 cm long. Although it is not good-looking, the piranha has sharp teeth, and each move must be in droves.
If you smell a hint of blood, the whole family will inevitably move. The sharp teeth cling to the prey and then die, and they have to tear off a piece of meat. Piranhas also have a high IQ, and when they find their prey, they are the first to attack the vulnerabilities of their prey, such as their eyes and tail.
When the prey could not run, they rose up in groups and tore and ate the meat together. Because of their ferocious nature, they are also known as the "Water Wolf Clan".
Piranhas like to stay in turbulent places and look for food in the morning and evening. They do not have high requirements for the living environment, they are more adaptable, and the small fish in the river are the belly food of piranhas.
It is said that someone once witnessed a cow entering the river and wanted to take a bath, but they did not expect a large group of piranhas to swarm up, and in just a few seconds the river was blood red. Under the nibble of the piranha, a large cow turned into a pile of bones in a short while.
A 22-year-old man in Paraguay went swimming in a river near his home on 2 January 2022, but did not return home for a long time. The family felt that something was wrong and called the police, looking for more than 40 minutes and finally found his body in the river, and when he was salvaged, he had been chewed by the piranha beyond recognition.
In less than 2 months, the local report that the piranha killed 4 people and injured 20 people, which is really terrifying!
Piranhas are native to the Amazon, so why aren't they dominating the Amazon rivers?
There are too many piranha busters to run rampant in the Amazon rivers
Primitive food chains are compatible, allowing different species to continue to survive in nature, and piranhas have nemesis even if they are fierce.
If a creature floods in one place, or dominates, it must be because there are no natural enemies. In order to be able to fight against piranhas with "sharp weapons" in their mouths, many fish have had the ability to fight piranhas in thousands of years of evolution. Piranhas have many natural enemies in the Amazon, and it is impossible to dominate.
Electric eels are one of the species that piranhas fear, and when they encounter swarms of piranhas, they are not afraid, and even a little happy. Without waiting for the piranha to approach, the electric eel used its own trick to discharge, and the piranhas were electrocuted, and finally became the food in the mouth of the eel.
In addition to electric eels, catfish also have a unique trick against piranhas. They swim much faster than piranhas, and when they see piranhas, they run under their abdomen to protect themselves in a "peek-a-boo" manner.
Piranhas have sharp teeth, and the spines on the catfish can make the piranha unable to bite. You can also use the thorns on your body to kill piranhas, which are the number one killer in the Amazon river, and the ferocious piranhas can only be relegated to the fourth, and piranhas do not dare to provoke them.
Although the piranha is more ferocious, compared to the crocodile, the piranha can only be said to have an axe. In terms of size and ferocity, piranhas simply cannot match it. Crocodiles sometimes eat piranhas to beat the tooth sacrifice, piranhas grow less, but piranhas like to flock, and there is a lot of meat in one bite.
There are many natural enemies in the river, otters, dolphins, etc. are the nemesis of piranhas. Outside the river, there are also many natural enemies of piranhas, such as egrets, herons, humans, etc. will eat piranhas. It is precisely because of the large number of natural enemies of piranhas that they are not enough to dominate the Amazon river.
Piranhas have too many shortcomings in themselves
God opened a window for them and closed a door. The ferocity of piranhas makes many people afraid, but in addition to too many natural enemies, they also have more shortcomings, limiting the growth of the group.
Piranhas, "blind" in the water
One of the shortcomings of piranhas is poor vision. The Amazon rivers are turbulent and turbid. In the river, the visibility is about 1 meter, and the piranha cannot even see a distance of one meter, usually only 25 centimeters in front of itself, which is not much different from "opening its eyes and being blind".
If the river is relatively clear, they can only see objects of about 1 meter at most, and their vision is really not good.
Piranha reproduction rates are too low
A single female piranha can lay more than 1,000 eggs at a time, which hatch 9-10 days after spawning. It is reasonable to be able to lay so many eggs and reproduce quickly. However, because the Amazon river is turbulent, many eggs are washed away by the water within minutes of laying, and it is difficult to survive.
Secondly, the scavengers and various fish in the river also eat piranha eggs. As a result, piranha populations have been low and reproduction rates are low.
Although the piranha is fierce, it is also a bag to break away from the group
Don't look at the piranhas who are very fierce in the water, flocking to the water as soon as they smell blood, but they are a complete instigator when they are separated from the group and fight alone.
We usually see piranhas in ornamental fish, and raising a piranha in the fish tank is particularly docile to look at. As soon as he heard the movement, he would run to the corner and hide, which was not as scary as the rumors.
It is said that the dog fights the human strength, and it turns out that the piranha is also fighting for a large number of "brothers and sisters" who have a lot of themselves, and if only it is left with one fish, it will be fatal.
It is precisely because piranhas become unusually "provocative" when they leave the group, and they are doomed to become the hegemons of the Amazon rivers.
Write at the end:
Piranhas are fierce in the river and still can't escape the human table. Although the name is "piranha", very few people are actually eaten by piranhas. They usually do not actively attack large animals, preferring to eat small fish and decomposing carcasses.
But after smelling blood, the piranha will start to riot and frantically go up to nibble. Scientists are also puzzled by this behavior of piranhas, and some people think that piranhas have a sensitive sense of smell and are unusually sensitive to blood; It is also believed that piranhas begin to "go crazy" after feeling the fluctuations in the water.
Now there are not a few piranhas that are brought to the table every year, is it a piranha or a human eating fish? The sharp decline in piranha populations is also inseparable from human fishing. Biologists say piranhas may become extinct in the near future.
Continuing is a problem, let alone dominating Amazon.
Today's topic: Do you still think that piranhas are terrible?
Resources:
Do piranhas really eat people? CNKI 2020-05-05
Piranha "water wolf clan" - Ren Shuo CNKI 2018-01-15
Author: Yijun Review lamb Proofreader: Plum