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Genital-biting fish terrorise village
06jul01 TWO Papua New Guinea fishermen have bled to death after piranha-like river fish bit off their penises. The fish, which zero in on urine, have struck terror among villagers along the Sepik River, in north-western PNG. Authorities believe the killer fish is an introduced member of the South American pacu family and relative of the piranha. In both of last month's fatalities, the fish demonstrated a trait of the piranha by following a trail of urine in the water, swimming to its source and then biting it off with razor-sharp teeth. Some believe the killer may be a food-source fish introduced from Brazil in 1994 by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation and the PNG National Fisheries Authority. However marine biologist and aquaculturist Ian Middleton said he believed they were a different species, introduced from across the PNG-Indonesia border. He denied the fish were the descendants of the pacu introduced to the Sepik River in 1994 and to the Ramu River at Madang in 1997 as a protein substitute. "The killer fish have the most human-like teeth on the bottom jaw I have ever seen and quite possibly feed on insects," he said, while the pacu introduced by the FAO and NFA grew to 20kg and had no teeth. Mr Middleton said he believed the killer fish had started biting humans because of a lack of naturally occurring food. "The reason for biting people on their genitals I believe is a result of the fish detecting a chemical change," he said. Mr Middleton said this was well documented in the Amazon, where piranhas attack in response to urine or blood. He said people along the Ramu River were harvesting the introduced pacu without any reports of attacks on humans. "I do not believe . . . the FAO and the NFA would be stupid enough to introduce such a hazardous species, nor any relative of the piranha," Mr Middleton said.
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