How this fish—'a tiny tank of the Amazon'—survives razor-sharp piranha bites - National Geographic

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Researchers in a California biomechanics lab recently staged what should have been the most lopsided freshwater cage match of all time. In one corner was a red-bellied piranha, the razor-toothed terror of the Amazon. In the other was a three-striped cory, a faintly dopey-looking catfish about an inch long.The piranha edged the cory into a corner, opened wide and chomped down once, twice, ultimately 10 times—only for the catfish to wriggle free and drift off unfazed, if a little miffed.“It’s not even a startle response, where it’s swimming away fast,” says Misty Paig-Tran, an associate professor of biological sciences at California State University, Fullerton, with a chuckle of admiration. “It’s just kind of like, ‘What are you doing? Stop ruining my day.’”How can this small fish take such abuse? According to recent research published in the scientific journal Acta Biomaterialia, the secret is its armor: specialized scales made of collagen and mineral that punch above their weight. Researchers hope that humans might be able to imitate these scales to make stronger and lighter materials, such as body armor.To swim another dayThe three-striped cory belongs to a taxonomic group called the armored catfish andspends its days snuffling along the sandy banks and muddy river bottoms of the Amazon and its tributaries. It uses its fleshy, taste bud-lined whiskers to forage for food.At an inch or two in length, these fish can be eaten whole by some large predators, including giant otters and pink river dolphins. But when it comes to piranhas—especially the smaller ones that tend to be interested in the catfish to begin with—the cory’s scales give the creature a fighting chance.In the course of the study, three-striped corys were introduced to captive raised red-bellied piranhas. Andrew Lowe, now a research assistant at Chapman University, figured the cory’s prognosis was grim—videos of aquarists feeding their pet piranhas reveal that one bite to the abdomen can be enough to wrench the guts from similar-size, non-armored fish. View Images The Link Lonk


January 22, 2021 at 01:30AM
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How this fish—'a tiny tank of the Amazon'—survives razor-sharp piranha bites - National Geographic

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