FOXSYLVANIA

– – I, for one, do not worry excessively about piranha, although Frankie the Fish does tend to annoy me because his McDonald’s jingle sticks inside my head.  (–“Gimme back that Fillet-O-Fish!”)

Anyways, MonsterQuest warned in their current episode that reports of piranha sightings have been growing around the country!–Yes, a Piranha Invasion! Even though these suckers are native to South American countries like Brazil, piranha have reportedly been caught every year for the past three years in the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.

So MonsterQuest sent their team to this very location where a baited underwater surveying system was submerged, using what they termed a “dead chicken”  as bait.  While the deceased chicken was shredded up a bit, cameras showed that native fish did it rather than piranha.  The science team additionally ran experiments to see if red-bellied piranha could survive in cold water as would be encountered in the Ozark lake in winter.  They found that the piranha huddled together in temperatures from 55 to 50 degrees, and below that point, they lost their equilibrium and would presumably croak.   Parts of the Ozark lake in question are fed by underwater streams that stay warmer,  possibly in the mid-to upper 50’s range in winter so piranha could survive.

The historical perspectives of the show were to me the most interesting, with reference made to a mega-piranha four times the size of the current model which became extinct ten million years ago.  None less than Teddy Roosevelt gave an account of Amazonian piranha back in 1914 which cemented their reputation as ferocious.  An old grainy black and white photo of about that vintage was also shown depicting a human body stripped to the skeleton supposedly by piranha.  Today, there are dozens of documented piranha attacks in South America, with many of the victims having lost pieces of fingers and toes.

With over 40 different species of piranha, some like the red bellied variety may be better able to survive cold water, and there may be a handful of piranha in the Ozark lake, although probably not a lively breeding population.   Nothing to lose sleep over…

…and maybe next week’s episode on a “Lizard Man” may be more interesting!