- The Thames is home to over a hundred species of fish
but never, until now, has a piranha been found in its murky waters.
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- One of the deadly Amazonian fish, shoals of which can
devour big prey in seconds, mysteriously landed on a moored vessel in Dagenham,
east London, having apparently fallen out of the sky.
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- The three crew of the Thames Bubbler environmental boat,
which pumps oxygen into the river, identified the razor-toothed fish as
a piranha and called in marine experts to investigate.
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- Tom Cousins, a fisheries officer at the Environmental
Agency, immediately recognised the specimen as a red-bellied piranha. He
surmised that the fish had been accidentally dropped by a passing seagull
which had plucked it out of the water.
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- Mr Cousins said: "I have to admit that I was pretty
sceptical when I got a call from them telling me that a piranha had fallen
out of the sky on to the vessel. But when I saw it, I recognised it by
its shape, and it had a really good pair of teeth on it. It was very fresh
and had obviously only just died. You could see the marks made by the seagull's
beak on its back."
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- Mr Cousins thought that the fish, normally found in the
warmer fresh waters of the Amazon, had probably been released by its former
owner and swum along the Thames before it was picked up on Wednesday afternoon
by a seagull.
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- If the fish had managed to survive - almost impossible
for a species that is used to hunting in a large shoal - it might have
infected some of the 119 native species of Thames fish, including eels,
carp, mullet, Dover sole and bass, with new bacteria.
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- "Introducing a new species to the river can upset
the ecological system as foreign species transmit parasites and diseases
to native species that have no immunity to them.
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- "This was a reckless and illegal act by whoever
set it free. If, heaven forbid, it had survived, it would have been a pretty
dangerous predator," said Mr Cousins.
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- Paul Hale, curator at the London Aquarium, said piranhas
were acclimatised to swimming in at least 15C waters and the fish would
not have survived for longer than an hour in the Thames' current 10C temperatures.
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- "It could not have survived in the low temperatures
of the Thames. And piranhas are generally nervous and not the ferocious
killers people think they are. They prey on weak and injured animals, including
fish, birds and mammals, as well as carrion," he said.
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- Piranhas are often kept as pets in Britain, despite the
fact they need to be kept in large tanks heated to within a narrow temperature
range.
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- Paul Griffin, manager of Aqualand Pet Centre in Birmingham,
sells red-bellied piranhas for between £5 and £11 depending
on size.
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- "We sell between six to eight every month and I
would say that the piranha is mainly a boy's fish," he said.
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- "I've been raising piranhas since the Seventies
and Eighties and I have always found them to be very interesting pets."
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- Although there are vegetarian species of piranha, which
eat fruit and nuts, their carnivorous cousins are vicious. Piranha attacks
on bathers have been increasing in Brazil following the damming of rivers.
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- SHORT AND SNAPPY
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- Name: Pygocentrus nattereri
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- Age: Can live for 10 years
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- Home: Large, slow rivers in the Amazon
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- Appearance: Up to 30cm long, silvery-grey fish with red
bellies
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- Mouth: Powerful jaws and razor-sharp teeth. Typical bite
is 12.5cm across
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- Favourite food: Live fish or dead meat
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- Likes: Hunting in shoals and devouring prey in seconds
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- Dislikes: The cold. Ideal water temperature is 24-27C
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- Loves: Eggs laid among plants in a pit. Defended by parents
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- Most frightening fact: Believed to have eaten 300 people
when a boat capsized near Obidos, Brazil, in September 1981.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=493592
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