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This is the gruesome moment a bull's head was ripped to the bone by a shoal of bloodthirsty piranhas.
The fish tore into the animal's flesh after it was dipped into the murky waters of the Amazon river by a local man standing on a gondola.
The daredevil raised the head out of the water to reveal the fish gorging on the meat just inches away from his unprotected hands.
Piranhas can attack humans too but thankfully did not decide to take a bite out of him.
The footage of the extraordinary feeding frenzy was posted on YouTube, where it has been viewed more than seven thousand times.
Every year hundreds of piranha attacks are reported throughout South America.
The most notable piranha incident in recent times came in Argentina in December 2013, when an attack by a school of hungry piranhas saw 70 people injured and several children lose fingers and toes.
When we think of predators, we often imagine a huge animal with razor sharp teeth and a big scary mouth. However, predators in the animal kingdom come in all shapes and sizes. These animals are designed to survive and stand on top of their ecosystem. Below are 6 powerful but small predators found in the wild.
Praying Mantis
Aside from its ability to blend into the foliage and leaves around it, these alien-looking insects can ambush prey using long, sharp, and spiked forelegs. They aim for their victim’s neck region and bite on it to make them immobile. Praying mantises feed on other insects, as well as bigger animals like frogs, lizards, small birds, and even snakes.
Blue-Ringed Octopus
Who could even imagine that a creature that grows to around 5 to 8 inches could be one of the most poisonous animals on the planet? The blue-ringed octopus has venom that’s so poisonous, it can kill a few humans with just one bite in a matter of minutes. Thankfully, they feed off shrimps and crabs and would rather run off instead of attacking humans.
Spider Wasp
Unlike bees that leave stingers on their victims, wasps actually bite them, meaning that they can attack again and again. Spider wasps are one of the biggest wasp species and have bites that can paralyze prey. These wasps hunts down large spiders, take them down, and then brings them to their nest.
Candiru
Candirus are small bloodsuckers that transfer from one host to another, attaching itself to larger fishes. After it has feed off and killed its host, it moves to a new one. People who live near the Amazon River would often warn newbies and tourist about peeing in the water. These creatures have been known to swim into and lodge itself inside human orifices. Jack Jumper Ants
A carnivorous and large ant specie, they have excellent eyesight which helps hunt their prey down. Lethal venom also comes from their bites which can result to painful stings. Humans that are allergic to this may end up experiencing anaphylactic shock.
Piranha
One of the most infamous carnivores fishes on the planet, Piranhas have small but very sharp teeth that can rip through flesh. They travel in schools and can take on prey much larger than they are, such as bigger fish, cattle, and horses. There have also been a few reports that these fishes have attacked humans.
News reports from Argentina tell of
piranhas in a feeding frenzy injuring around 60 people in the City of Rosario,
Argentina.
Adding insult to injury is how the attack
happened on Christmas day.
Most of the reported injuries were minor in
nature, but the ferocious fish managed to take part of a finger from a girl,
this according to Health Undersecretary Gabriela Quintanilla.
Quintanilla added that the attack occurred
on Christmas day off the coast of Rosario, situated 200 miles to the north of
Buenos Aires. According to Gustavo Centurion, a medical official, the piranha
attack was of a ‘very aggressive’ nature, with some people having small bits of
flesh torn away by the fish.
With the region being afflicted by a heat
wave, temperatures are soaring to 38 degrees Celsius, causing many people in
the area to cool themselves off in the Parana River, which as you may have
guessed, is teeming with the carnivorous fish.
The unusually hot weather may have also
driven the fish closer to the river’s surface before the attack, making it easy
for them to attack the swimmers, this according to the authorities.
It can be said that the success of the Piranha series of horror/suspense features owes its successful run to one name – James Cameron.
Being the director of the second Piranha feature, Piranha II: The Spawning, the film looked into the suspense potentials of mutated piranhas which, through “fin flapping”, could literally fly out of the water and attack prey.
Though the movie’s B-Class qualities is evident, Piranha II: The Spawning says a lot about the pretexts of “superstars in the making”, with Cameron eventually making other movies which raked in box office success accolades and awards.
It also raised the question over the possibility of piranhas mutating and evolving to a “flying through fin flapping” state, a state with experts agree isn’t a likely possibility.
Standing out as one of the more notorious fish species in the Amazon, the piranha is known for its swarm-oriented attacks, with piranha groups capable of ripping off the meat of animals within seconds. Animals which happen to unfortunately come their way are recorded to be reduced to their bones within minutes, a testament to the voracity of the carnivore fish species.
Dangerous and deadly, the piranha’s physical attributes deem them as monstrous fishes, with triangular-shaped rows of sharp teeth lining their mouths, making solo piranhas fishes which you do not want to mess with, let alone have anything to do with a group.
With its infamy for being rabid carnivores, it’s really no wonder why Cameron and his crew thought that the notion of “flying piranhas” would work in a creature-feature movie. Though the movie can’t really be described as a cinematic masterpiece, the track record which its director eventually got to make has made it a cinematic novelty, one which has also once again propelled interest to one of the world’s deadliest fish species, the piranha.
Piranha II: The Spawning is one movie that is quite special and unique, not so much because of the generally “deadpan” script and cinematic factors of the movie, but more because it was actually directed by James Cameron of The Terminator and Avatar fame.
Though Cameron did eventually get to direct and pen down better movies after, the film, as a creature-feature, showcased mutated piranhas which gained the ability to fly through “fin flapping”, which generally caused a lot of problems in and out of the water for the movie’s cast characters.
Given the “rabid” attribute associated with piranhas, one has to ask: can piranhas actually do what they did in Piranha II: The Spawning?
No, they can’t.
In fact, piranhas have been victims of unreservedly being pegged as rabid fishes, as mindless bodies of teeth with eating out anything being their only priority.
Piranhas are actually kept by many as pets, housed in aquariums in different households where keeping them as pets is legal. As pet fishes though, they are not like your average goldfish, and their care and keep also has a degree of danger and risk involved.
As fish types, there are different piranha species and as a species they are classified as omnivores, since there are certain piranhas which only eat plants. Bet you didn’t know about that.
Also, as pet fishes, piranhas tend to grow to large sizes, with some measuring as big as two feet. Large tanks/aquariums are really necessary if one intends or keeps a piranha. Also, piranhas are generally kept in small numbers, at times even as solitary fishes. This is because there are cases of piranhas attacking their fellows in same-shared tanks.
But with its particular upkeeps and care aside, piranhas are interesting pet fish to have, though care in their handling has to be constantly maintained, ensuring that no harm comes to piranhas and pet owners, alike.
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