Red-bellied piranha

When mummy and daddy went to Ireland, they brought back presents for me and Redwin.  I got a taxidermy red-bellied piranha that Tom, my mummy and daddy’s friend, sent for me.  I have only one taxidermy fish and that is the piranha.  Piranhas are native to the Amazon Basin in Brazil.  They are vicious fish, and will eat water birds like herons and egrets, peccaries and other wild pigs, and even young caimans, the South American equivalent to the alligator.  Piranhas can only take prey many times bigger than themselves because they work together.  They usually take wounded animals because large mammals such as peccaries would be too big and strong if they were in full health.  Groups of piranhas use their dagger-like teeth to strip large water birds and pigs to the bone.  They can do this in just a few minutes.  Piranhas are small fish, only around 20 centimetres in length, so their only defence is working as a group.  Due to their small size, they do have predators.  The main predators of the piranha are caimans and giant otters, both top predators of the Amazon.  They will also be taken by the biggest cat in the Americas, the jaguar.  Jaguars have the strongest bite of any big cat, easily enough to kill a piranha.