Pygocentrus
Genus of fishes
Pygocentrus is a genus of freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Serrasalmidae, which includes the pacus, piranhas and related fishes. All species are native to tropical and subtropical South America. All the species are predatory, scavengers and may form large schools. The famous red-bellied piranha, Pygocentrus nattereri, is one of four species in the genus.
01Species
These are the currently recognized species in this genus:
- Pygocentrus cariba (Humboldt, 1821) (black spot piranha)
- Pygocentrus nattereri Kner, 1858 (red piranha, red-bellied piranha)
- Pygocentrus piraya (G. Cuvier, 1819) (San Francisco piranha)
Pygocentrus palometa Valenciennes, 1850 is regarded as a nomen dubium.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Pygocentrus”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Piranha1.jpg by Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0
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