New species of piranha-like fish would have made you eat very slowly – BGR

Needless to say, you could find quite dangerous animals if you go back in time there are tens of millions of years, but all the creatures that were hiding in the prehistoric times n & # 39; They were not radically different from what we can still find on Earth today.

A recently discovered species of ancient fish that swam in the waters of the Earth about 150 million years ago does not really look so different from those that still exist today. But that does not mean that you'll ever want to swim with them. The species was named Piranhamesodon pinnatomus and if you could not identify it, its name looked a lot like a piranha.

The fish, found in German, would have lived during late Jurbadic times. This means that it would have been around the same time as pretty iconic dinosaurs, such as allosaurus, stegosaurus and brachiosaurus, but that the animal was not a dinosaur.

What it was, though. , was a nuisance serious enough for other fish. The researchers who discovered the species – whose work is published in Current Biology – discovered what they thought were some of the victims of the nearby fish. Rather than being torn and feasting, prey was not killed. Instead, the sharp-toothed predator apparently nibbled their fins, allowing them to grow back before biting once more.

"This is an astonishing parallel to modern piranhas, which feed primarily not on flesh but fins," David Bellwood, co-author of the research, said, "This is a remarkably clever move when the fins are growing again, a clean and renewable resource. "

Piranhas tend to be described as bloodthirsty beasts teeming to attack anything that comes close to them, but the reality is that the Most of the time, carnivorous fish take small meals whenever they can.This new discovery seems to suggest that the same goes for similar fish dating back 150 million years. -being that time does not change that much after all?