The black piranha has the most powerful bite of all carnivorous fishes, living or extinct. Even at their small body sizes, new research indicates that piranhas will attack and bite chunks of bony fins and flesh from prey many times larger than themselves. Piranhas have a reputation as the most ferocious fish in the world, With razor sharp teeth, they hunt in packs, stripping a body of its flesh. The first bite-force measurements taken from wild specimens of this largest species of piranha in the Amazon, shows that this creature can bite with a force more than 30 times greater than its weight. The black piranha has jaw muscles of an ‘extraordinary’ size and a highly modified jaw-closing lever. In fact, the muscle complex makes more than two percent of the black piranha’s total body mass. This allows the fish to exert bite force equivalent to 30 times its bodyweight. The measured bite force of the black piranha, at 320 newton (N), was nearly three times greater than that exerted by an American alligator of comparative size, said the study. The Black Piranha, has outsized jaw muscles allowing it to exert bite force equivalent to 30 times its bodyweight, a feat unmatched in the natural world.
Credit : Dailymail
Picture Credit : Google
