Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 9, Number 5, DeMotte, Jasper County, 22 December 1938 — Piranha, Most Vicious Jungle Fish, Lurks in the Rivers of South America [ARTICLE]

Piranha, Most Vicious Jungle Fish, Lurks in the Rivers of South America

Probably the worst enemy of any living thing (in the South American jungle) lurks in the river itself —the piranha. There are piranhas in almost every South American river and they are literally devils, writes Stuart Martin in Wide World, London. I have seen three varieties —the green-and-gold ones of Paraguay, the shiny gray specimens of the Amazon, and the green-and-black spotted demons of the Araguaya and Xingu. The natives eat them, but the quality of their flesh is nothing to brag about. For a wounded ox or horse to fall into the river means certain death; it is also fatal for a human being to get among a shoal of piranhas, especially if there is any sore or wound on his body. Piranhas can scent their prey far away, and go literally mad at the taste of blood. It is a sickening spectacle to see these fierce fish conducting, a mass attack.- The water around the unfortunate animal that falls into their clutch becomes a whirlpool, a maelstrom of death, boiling and foaming as the blood-crazed piranhas rush to the feast. They eat the flesh off

the living victim until they reach the bones; soon nothing but the skeleiton remains. easily by baiting their hooks with a bit of meat or newly-dead fish. When the dreature is jerked ashore it is still viciously. As an example of the ferocity of the piranha I may say that it is a common custom to slice off the heads with a shc.rp knife—and even when this is done the jaws continue to snap at you! These demons are usually between 18 inches and 2 feet in length.