Red Bellied Pacu (Colossoma bidens)

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Pacu teeth resemble human teeth as you can see in our photo’s and are used to crush nuts and seeds that would fall from the Amazonian forests into the Pacu’s water.

SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION

  • Kingdom: Animalia
  • Phylum: Chordata
  • Class: Actinopterygii
  • Order: Characiformes
  • Family: Characidae
  • Subfamily: Serrasalminae
  • Genus: Colossoma
  • Species: Colossoma bidens
Common name: Red Bellied Pacu, Pacu Thai name: Plah Jaramet nam jeut (จาระเม็ด) Thailand status: Introduced Max size: 20kg (44lb) Diet: Omnivore Habitat: Fresh water

Red Bellied Pacu are Omnivores and will eat a wide range of food. Their favoured natural diet is vegetation, nuts and seeds but will also take most other offerings like small fish, vegetable, insects, meat, rice or dead baits. The teeth resemble human teeth and are used to crush nuts and seeds that would fall from the Amazonian forests into the Pacu's water. They are Closely related to the infamous Piranha fish, the main difference being the Piranha have pointed, razor-sharp teeth (Carnivores) and pacu have square, straight teeth (Omnivore). Red bellied pacu can also grow much larger than piranha but are not overly aggressive.

The teeth of the Red bellied Pacu are good for crushing nuts and chomping vegetation. They can be caught on a wide variety of baits. Pacu are also predatory from juveniles to adult and will take small fish, flies and lures

Pacu have been introduced to many many fishing parks around Thailand. They are a popular imported fish species as they are fast growing, strong fighting and will take many different kinds of baits.