[BRUNER247]

Do cariba babies n juviniles shoal with rbp for food n protection like serras?

[CombiChrist]

No, they don't need to do that for protection. They are a shoaling species themselves, that hunt in a pack mentality.
They shoal with rbp cause it increases the pack size and since they are part of the same genus, there is no big problem to it.

[DeepFriedIctalurus]

BRUNER247, on 29 July 2010 - 10:12 PM, said:

Do cariba babies n juviniles shoal with rbp for food n protection like serras?

In the wild? Nope. Caribe are from the Rio Orinoco basin, while redbellies are from the Amazon. There are Serrasalmus hanging around schools of P.caribe just the same, but I'm sure the youngest all try to blend in with any Serrasalmids.


I moved your last question over to Breeding and answered it there..

[BRUNER247]

I thinking rbp were bout everywhere down there. Well that's what I was getting to was serras spawning around other piranhas for their offspring to have host schools. Thanks deepfried

[DeepFriedIctalurus]

BRUNER247, on 07 August 2010 - 08:27 PM, said:

I thinking rbp were bout everywhere down there. Well that's what I was getting to was serras spawning around other piranhas for their offspring to have host schools. Thanks deepfried

Each of the 4 major river systems in S.America all have their own unique Pygocentrus, but piranha in general are all so closely related that it causes great difficulties in sorting out the Serrasalmus ssp.

Nearly all of them are purely fin/scale eaters when very young, so they will seek out the most abundant food source. Mostly likely that will be pacu/silver dollars, so there's not much opportunity for seeking schools of Pygocentrus until those get a little larger (4-5" I would assume) and start joining schools of their own species. I would think that is where you start to see Serrasalmus specificly targeting Pygos for fin/scale meals, not in the juvenile growth period immediately following spawning.