Do piranhas eat people?

While the myth of the man-eating piranha belongs to movie theaters, the Internet has a wealth of mysterious footage of piranha packs taking down capybaras. Some piranhas do occasionally eat small mammals, but as with humans, it's usually when the unfortunate animal is already dead or gravely injured. read more

Piranhas do indeed have sharp teeth, and many are carnivorous. But there’s a lot of diet variation among species—that’s one reason piranhas have proved hard to taxonomically classify. Piranhas are also hard to tell apart in terms of species, diet, coloration, teeth, and even geographic range. read more

It is not uncommon for local people (and tourists) to swim among piranhas. The fact is, except during lean times, piranhas are no more dangerous than other comparably-sized fish. While people may fear being eaten by piranhas, in reality the situation is reversed. Piranhas are often a delicious and popular food where they are found. read more

Piranhas can also detect a drop of blood in 200 liters of water and shoals can clean off meat from a carcass with alarming effectiveness. Steve went in search of this notorious killer fish when he travelled to the Amazon river. read more