As much as I enjoyed watching Jeremy Wade scour the planet for "monsters"...he really did start to stretch it out a little thin there...Ya, I saw on river monsters they were eating peoples junk…
can pacu fish break tank
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I believe that. I was waggling my fingers in front of one of my pacus when he bit my finger. It left a crescent shaped bleeding wound the width of his mouth. I am convinced he could have bitten the tip of my finger off if he had bitten the tip and not the side of my finger. I bet I'm the only MFK member with "her fish bit her" in their medical records. My oncologist was not happy and said that fish carry many pathogenic microorganisms. They do not allow fish tanks in the oncology unit of the medical center. I had to keep my hand out of the tank from then on until I finished chemotherapy treatments. And no, pacu are not mean vicious fish. They are extremely curious fish, and without hands and fingers to investigate their world, they only have their mouths and teeth to do so.
I think the explanation on river monsters was that places they were invasive, they became carnivorous without their nature diet, and part of their new diet was male genitalia lol
I’m guessing, it happened once or twice as outliers and was embellish for the show.
Pacu are omnivores and will eat anything and everything including non-food items. One long-time member on this forum had a pacu who swallowed a suction cup. She had to pull it out of her pacu after it had passed through its digestive tract. They are opportunistic eaters and should never be fed live food - it trains them to be killers. People who do that then complain that their pacu kills everything in the tank. I don't think the New Guinea fisherman who was essentially castrated was wearing Speedos. Anything dangling and/or moving in the water is fair game for pacu either to just check out or to eat.
BTW, my big guys use their teeth mainly to check out stuff, not to eat. They inhale their algae wafers and don't bother to chew. I use to feed them whole raw almonds, but since they don't bother chewing I stopped feeding them almonds in case the almonds aren't digested. I was afraid the almonds might foul up my mechanical filtration plumbing.
I used to feed them veggies for my entertainment, and they had to use their teeth. In this video you can hear Leonardo polishing off a carrot
Old video of my pacu tag teaming a carrot I threw in the tank. They ate it all as the first video shows
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I'm far from a dentition expert but a full mouth of Pacu teeth look strikingly human to me. Same arrangement and shape, etc.
In a way pacu teeth do resemble human teeth . I never saw my pacus teeth until his lower lip was sliced off. He needs orthodontics and needs a root canal on one of his incisors. (Retired dentist here). BTW, my pacu are both females which I discovered by doing some online searching a few years ago. I have called them Leonardo de Fishio and Adonis for 18 years, and Leah and Donna won't cut it after all these years. My pacu can be whatever I identify them to be, so they will continue to be my boys. Liking this gender fluidity stuff more. .. https://photos.app.goo.gl/5WjH9aE4mQrA4vof9
