Fight of the century
I wonder what'll happen in a rumble between these fishies and some pike or Zander?
Killer piranha stalk Folkestone pond
Experts fear Britain could be facing a deadly invasion of killer piranha after a Kent angler hooked one of the Amazonian fang-fish in a Folkestone pond - thousands of miles from its natural habitat where gangs of them regularly strip the flesh from their victims in a terrifying frenzy of teeth and foaming water. The poster …
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Friday 18th June 2010 09:28 GMT TimeMaster T
Title!
But what kind of Piranha where they?
Many are primarily vegetarian believe it or not, meat is a bonus but not their main food stuff. If the ones in the tank had been of the more aggressive carnivorous variety it may have had a different outcome.
One thing about Piranha, they are great in a chowder. Also believed by some locals of the Amazon to have "enhancing" effects.
I'll have a pint and a bowl of chowder please.
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Friday 18th June 2010 11:08 GMT FreeTard
Pike would eat it
Pirhana's are not that dangerous,only when the water level drops significantly in mid-summer. They get concentrated in pools and then they are dangerous.
Saying that, my mate comes from Pirhana land, and they kill a deer / cow / horse down river before they do mass crossings with their farm animals. Else there animals get eaten.
Mind you, I used to keep pirhanas and we'd play a drunken party game "Who can keep the bloodied finger in the tank longest". I still have the scar.
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Thursday 17th June 2010 11:40 GMT Rumcajz
Ms. Bee and the disease of the double-entendre
Perhaps Ms. Bee was thinking in non-angling terms for a few moments, and inadvertently (or even intentionally!!) thought of a double-entendre connected with a phrase in the article.
I guess we can only hope that readers of El Reg don't catch this awful habit from her. Even the staff could, if this type of thing goes unchecked, become habituated and eventually addicted.
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Thursday 17th June 2010 11:38 GMT Thomas 4
@Ms Bee
I agree with your point about people discarding unwanted pets being fuckstains but the part about piranhas not killing people is not entirely true.
Piranhas will attack anything large in shoals, be it a fish, aquatic mammal or a careless human and these attacks are quite often fatal. Piranhas and sharks don't *actively* seek out humans, by, say, jumping on the Number 23 to Swindon kicking your front door in and devouring your family. They are opportunistic predators but predators none-the-less.
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Thursday 17th June 2010 11:40 GMT Fred Flintstone
Correct..
.. they just eat them. That they die in the process is just an unfortunate side effect :-)
Just kidding. One piranha is unlikely to be up to a complete cow or human anyway, it takes a school to do a decent, movie-compatible job. And with the current state of schools I can't see that happen.
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Thursday 17th June 2010 10:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
What DO you mean...
"it generally feeds on insects, worms and other fish"
"Yes, yes. I bet you've got something terrifically funny to say about that. Please do share it with the class."
What ... are you suggesting that there is something else that smells like tuna?
At last, something that might beat the Rampant Rabbit ... but strictly a one time experience, of course.
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Thursday 17th June 2010 10:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Reminds me....
of the time an aquarium (shop) went bust in St. Helens (Merseyside) and the guy dumped all his tropical fish in the "Hotties" (part of the Leeds / Liverpool canal that ran past the hot water outlet from the Pilkington glass works)
This made for some very exciting angling when I were a lad, a large variety of exotic fishies providing lots of almighty tugs on my rod down by that canal
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Thursday 17th June 2010 11:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
At last!
We can boast about dangerous flora and fauna in the English countryside! Before all you could say when talking to Johnny Foreigner was that we had some rather dubious sightings of what might have been a large black cat but could have well been a large dog. Or maybe you could have mentioned the rather pathetic adder... they can give a right nasty nip you know? And lastly there's hedgehogs (very nasty to stand on one), irate badgers, and, of course, the fearsome miffed squirrel.
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Thursday 17th June 2010 11:02 GMT Anonymous Coward
no they won't breed
this will have been released by some idiot who didn't want his pet fish any more - there's probably only one anyway
regardless of how many there are, they'll all be dead by this time next year as they are tropical fish from the Amazon basin - they won't survive winter in the UK
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Thursday 17th June 2010 11:38 GMT Rob 30
wrong climate
as a fish keeper i'm pretty surprised it survived being chucked in the lake in the first place to be honest, you're meant to acclimate them gradually to get them used to even small variations in ph, nitrate levels etc.. chucking a bucket of tropical tank water into an english river wouldn't leave many survivors one would think.
unless they are unusually hardy fish i guess, anyone here keep any?
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Thursday 17th June 2010 11:37 GMT Ian Ferguson
Piranhas aren't dangerous
"where gangs of them regularly strip the flesh from their victims in a terrifying frenzy of teeth and foaming water"
I hope that's Sun hyperbole and you don't believe EVERYTHING you read.
Bizarrely enough, the 'frenzy' myth started with Theodore Roosevelt:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirhana#Theodore_Roosevelt.27s_description
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Thursday 17th June 2010 11:38 GMT Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
Typical over exaggeration...
Fishermen huh!!! I'd be highly surprised if a single Pirhana could have taken his arm off lest it be on big mutant of a motherf**ing fish. OK, yes, maybe he could have gotten a fairly deep cut from the teeth, but the real threat of the Pirhana comes when there is a school of them... and only then that they are all hungry.
Incidentally, I had a nice tug on my rod last night ;-)
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
