Arizona man reels in fish with human-like teeth at a Tucson lake
Jan 22, 2018, 12:10 PM
(Flickr/Steve Grundy)
PHOENIX — A Tucson fisherman was surprised Friday when he hooked what he thought was a piranha.
According to Tucson.com, Jeff Evans was fishing in Tucson’s Silverbell Lake, a site he has visited for seven years, when he caught an interesting three-pound fish.
Mark Hart, spokesman for the Arizona Department of Game and Fish, said that while the fish does resemble a piranha, it is actually a pacu.
Related to the piranha, pacu are known for their teeth. Unlike the sharp teeth of piranhas, pacu have round teeth that have a strong similarity to human teeth.
Evans witnessed what the teeth were capable of when he first tried to catch one.
“I could see them, there were about five or six of them and I lost it the first time I hooked it, it broke the hook,” Evans said.
Evans switched hooks and was able to capture one. He said that the fish could be dangerous if people don’t know what they caught, saying that it tried to bite him.
The Arizona Department of Game and Fish fills the lake with trout, sunfish and catfish for citizens to catch, but Hart said that people will come in and dump different kinds of fish.
“It happens a lot…either fish they’ve caught at another location or whether they had it in an aquarium and decided they don’t want them,” Hart said. “For whatever reason they just dump them.”