Would You Dare Eat a Fish With Human Like Teeth

Do you think there’s a fish with human-like teeth? Have you seen one? Well there are, it’s called Pacu and the Sheepshead fish.

1. The Pacu Fish

Pacu is related to the meat-eating piranha, both sharing the same subfamily Serrasalminae, but they have different diets. Piranha is carnivorous proof of it are the sharp pointy teeth, while pacu is omnivorous with a squarer and straighter teeth like the humans.

Pacu is a South American freshwater fish found in most rivers and streams in the Amazon and Orinoco River and was artificially introduced in Papua New Guinea to help the local fish industries.

This fish uses its teeth to crush nuts, fruits and some vegetables, but sometimes they also eat other fish and invertebrates.

It is well-known as “ball-cutter” after castrating the testicles of male swimmer mistaking it to be a floating fruits and nuts that drop from trees, which they usually eats.

This fish is not aggressive as the piranhas but their strong jaw can be so dangerous, even a toddler needed surgery in her finger after being bitten by pacu.

Because of the incident, Deep Sea World zoological manager Matthew Kane warned, “Pacus will eat anything, even children’s wiggling fingers”.

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Pacus can grow up to 4 feet long, though it’s legal to own in the United States most of them end up in lakes once they are not fit in their tanks.

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The Ball Cutter has been reportedly responsible for the deaths of two fishermen in the Pacific nation, who died from blood loss after the fish had bitten off their testicles.

2. The Sheephead Fish

The Sheepshead fish (Archosargus probatocephalus) also has human teeth but a little too many than pacu. Yes a little too many, it’s like human with a unique combination of teeth that helps them eat wide-range of omnivorous food with a vibration of vertebrates, invertebrates and some plants too.

“A fully-grown adult sheepshead has well-defined incisors sitting at the front of the jaw, and molars set in three rows in the upper jaw and two rows in the lower jaw.”

 Photo Credit: Scientificamerican.com

“It has strong, heavy grinders set in the rear of the jaw too, which are particularly important for crushing the shells of its prey.”

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Sheepshead fish are also called convict fish due to the black and white bands that run down its silvery body.