Piranha on Steroids
Netlore Archive: Emailed pictures of fishermen holding a large fish with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth, variously captioned: 'Piranha on Steroids' or 'World Record Piranha.'
Description: Viral images
Circulating since: July 2007
Status: Mislabeled
Example:
Email contributed by Keith M., Aug. 1, 2007:
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Fw: Piranha on Steroids
What's for dinner??? The next time you're wading in your third world eco paradise stream or lake, just remember, your place in the food chain may get re-shuffled. I bet things like this reduces the urge to go skinny dipping.  Click to Enlarge  Click to Enlarge  Click to Enlarge |
Analysis: That's one scary-looking fish, all right -- but it isn't a piranha, a typical specimen of which only grows to about 6 to 10 inches in length (the largest on record was under 24 inches). The toothy critter in the pictures is probably a goliath tiger fish (aka African tigerfish or giant tigerfish), or Hydrocynus goliath if you're an ichthyologist. The species is native to the Congo River Basin and Lake Tanganyika in central Africa, where it is prized as a game fish.
You may indeed want to think twice before skinny-dipping in the native waters of this fish, because, according to Bill Hansford-Steele, author of the African Fly-Fishing Handbook (New Holland Publishers, 2004), the goliath tiger "has the somewhat singular distinction of being the only African freshwater fish (excluding the Zambezi shark, which is really a saltwater fish) known to attack humans, and there are several recorded incidents from the Congo River."
As to the origin of the above images, the identity of the photographer is unknown, though the EXIF data embedded in all three pictures indicates they were taken on October 31, 2006.
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Sources and further reading:
Piranha
Extreme ScienceHydrocynus Goliath (Giant Tigerfish)
Animal PlanetTiger Fish (Hydrocynus Goliath)
En français, with photos
Last updated: 09/07/07
