Toothy Fish Ain’t a Piranha After All
July 13, 2007
A story I covered earlier about a Piranha being caught in the Catawba River is not exactly true. North Carolina Wildlife has sent a fish biologist to reexamine the fish and this is what he said;
Jacob Rash, a state Wildlife Resources biologist, said Wednesday he met with Melton July 6, examined the fish, and correctly identified it as a pacu.
“They look very similar and can be hard to tell apart,” Rash said. “The telling sign is that pacus have two rows of molars on their upper jaw where piranhas have a single row of sharp teeth.”
Melton said he caught it while fishing for catfish near N.C. 27 in Mount Holly.
Pacus, which are omnivorous but normally eat fruit, pose little threat to humans, Rash said. But he said non-native species potentially can harm resident fish populations when introduced into local waters.
Needless to say no matter how many rows of teeth its got it shouldn’t be released into our waters. I don’t understand why people feel the need to dump unwanted non native fish into our waterways.
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