Serrasalmus marginatus
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| Serrasalmus marginatus | ||||||||||||
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Serrasalmus marginatus |
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| Serrasalmus marginatus | ||||||||||||
| ( Valenciennes , 1837) |
Serrasalmus marginatus , in English Spotted Piranha, Portuguese Catirina, is a species of saw tetra from tropical South America .
description
The fish are up to 27 centimeters long. They are often confused with S. irritans . The animals are silvery, greenish blue iridescent in color and have dark spots on their bodies, their dark caudal fin is V-shaped.
distribution
S. marginatus is widespread in the lower reaches and the floodplain forests of the Rio Paraná . You can find them in Argentina , Paraguay , Uruguay and Brazil .
Way of life
S. marginatus lives in rivers, streams and lagoons of the Paraná basin. Unlike other piranha species, there are no seasonal variations in food intake. S. marginatus hunts mainly during the day. Larger specimens even after dark. At night they hide themselves in protective aquatic vegetation. Smaller fish with a length of 7 to 10 centimeters live individually and claim a territory of about three to four square meters. Their eating habits are very similar to the species Catoprion mento , which also eats the scales and fins of other fish species. Both species stalk their prey fish with typical jerky movements in the protection of the aquatic vegetation. Then they rush out and bite pieces of meat out of the tail or anal fin of their victim. The typical sound of biting out can be heard underwater.
Aquarium keeping
S. marginatus is often kept in warm water aquariums. They are officially approved by IBAMA as ornamental fish for export from Brazil.
Notes and individual references
- ↑ Spotted piranha
- ↑ a b Serrasalmus marginatus on Fishbase.org (English)
- ↑ Ivan Sazima and Francisco Machado: Underwater Observations of Piranhas in Western Brazil, Environmental Biology of Fishes, 1990, 28: 17–31
- ^ Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis, Brazilian environmental authority
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
