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What Fish Is This?


Coss

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Whilst this post could be seen to be about food and or fishing, it's really about identification!

 

I went to the market here in Laos this week and bought, smoked and ate a fish that looks exactly like a Red Bellied Piranha from South America.

 

It was live when purchased, 1 Kilo on weight, 28 or 30 cm long and very delicious!

 

My problem is, that as far as I'm aware, the Red Bellied Piranha does not exist in SEA, except perhaps in an aquarium collection.

 

It looks exactly like the Red Bellied Piranha, but for the fact that it's teeth are smaller and less sharp, making me thing that it's more of a invertebrate/omnivore.

 

Any way, here's a photo of a real Red Bellied Piranha, which my fish looks exactly like. Does anyone know what they're called? I imagine that if you can get it in Laos you can get it anywhere along the Mekong River.

 

Cheers

 

Coss

 

 

 

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What I know from Suriname and our fishing trips there is that Piranha's are a very bony fish with barely any meat on them. They were only used as part of a fish soup. So if it was a tasty fish with lots of meat on it it probably wasn't a piranha :p

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Definitely not piranha - I watch every doco featuring those fish and they dont look like that, at least not in the river.

 

While we are on the wildlife kick, I was appalled to read a rather tedious tale from one of you-know-who's readers describing a conversation with a longtime Hua Hin resident. Said 'old salt' claimed to have owned a very popular bar where he kept pythons as an attraction - as you do ... - and would occasionally feed them a cat. A live cat.

 

I'm not a particularly big fan of cats - vicious little bastards - but I dont get my jollies watching constrictors swallow live prey. Perhaps he thought it was an appropriate metaphor for the way LOS eats some of us whole, but the whole thing reeked of creative license. Read enough paperbacks and you could generate endless 'anecdotes' .....

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I think a couple of you missed what the pic actually is as it's misleading. Coss actually posted and said he posted a pic of not what he ate but a pic of an actual Red Bellied Piranha and then would have the readers attempt to pinpoint what he actually consumed when what should have been posted was the pic of what he bought.

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