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

It goes without saying that you could find quite dangerous animals if you were traveling in the past there are tens of millions of years, but all the creatures that were hiding in the prehistoric times 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 seem so different from the one that still exists today, but that does not mean that you would have never wanted to swim with them. The species has been named Piranhamesodon pinnatomusand if you can not say his name, it looked a lot like a piranha.

The fish, which was found in German, would have lived at the end of the Jurassic. 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, however, was a nuisance serious enough for other fish. The researchers who discovered the species – whose work is published in Current biology – found what they thought were some of the fish victims nearby. 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.

"It's an amazing parallel with modern piranhas, which do not feed primarily on flesh but on other fish's fins," said Dr. David Bellwood, co-author of the research. "It's a remarkably smart move when the fins start growing again; a neat renewable resource. "

Piranhas tend to be described as bloodthirsty beasts teeming to attack everything that comes close to it, but the reality is that most carnivorous fish eat small meals each time. They can. This new discovery seems to suggest that the same goes for similar fish dating back to 150 million years ago. Maybe time does not change much after all?