Most powerful piranha

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Lumpsack

Registered Member
Sep 19, 2005
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A lot of questions on other forums have asked the question incorrectly. What is the "most aggressive" piranha or what is the meanest piranha? It seems to me that for better or for worse there is an unaswered but not unanswerable question out there. What is the most powerful piranha? I have heard a littany of anecdotes about rhoms either being unbeatable or wimps. Likewise anecdotes about elongatus being the most aggressive piranha but being killed by geryi, etc. Other speculation that pygo jaw strength is inherrently stronger than serras. It seems to that status, i.e. who is the baddest piranha out there is what people are looking for. And that doesn't mean the most aggressive and it doesn't mean the largest. It means simply that at maturity in a head to head, which species of piranha is the most powerful, i.e. combining size and aggression, would come out on top. Piraya? Maybe. Manuelis and rhoms get pretty good size too. Elongatus are aggressive but are limited to 12" so how can they be the baddest, most powerful piranha. Beautiful fish. But if we cut to the chase, the "it depends on the individual fish" isn't really a satisfying answer. And given what we know about the maximum size of a piranha species and the aggression of that species, it doesn't seem like that diffcult a question to answer. Nor do I claim to. But seems like we are talking about Caribes, rhoms, pirayas, manuellis and not elongatus, natteri, hollandi, etc. Thoughts?
 

FreddytheFish

Nano-Reefer
Aug 29, 2005
1,800
1
0
Cincinnati, OH
alright, so i know its not a pirhana, and i don't know how well it would do in a one-on-one fight, but i've heard that the Saber-Toothed Tetra (Hydrolycus scomberoides) is more aggresive than any pirhana and could rip one to shreds


this looks like a question for Sublime...
 
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Raskolnikov

AC Members
Jan 2, 2005
1,124
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0
I had a Hydrolycus sp. for a while. It was absolutely the most timid fish that I've ever kept, and anything that it could not swallow whole was safe with it (including a bichir, pictus catfish, knife fish...).

As per the "ripping to shreds" - In a word, no. Fish like piranha are able to bite off pieces of prey and feed upon fish that are too large to swallow. This feature is actually pretty rare in the fish world. Most predatory piscivorous fish have gripping teeth. The payara is one such fish whose needle-like teeth are great for soft-bodied prey retention and maniupulation but no good at cutting or tearing.
 

Wippit Guud

///\\oo//\\\
Sep 27, 2002
644
0
0
50
PEI, Canada
I remember hearing a story about a restaurant in Toronto having a piranha tank for show, and next to it a lake trout holding tank for a 'choose your own fish to eat" thing. Apparantly, one of the trout jumped into the piranha tank, and killed every fish in it.
 
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