One weekend in July, Gianna Clinton was relaxing in the backyard of her home, looking after her 11-year-old son, who was fishing in a pond.
When she saw Charlie throw the fishing rod away in fright and start screaming, the woman ran to her son.
“Mommy, Mommy, look what it is,” he shouted.
The pond, which was located right behind the Clintons’ Oklahoma home, was a place where children fished for bass and catfish and then released them back into the water.
But that day Charlie, using only a piece of bread as bait, was able to catch a very strange creature from the pond.
When Gianna got closer and was able to examine the prey, she discovered the creature had teeth like a human.
“This is the first time something like this has happened, we’ve only ever caught regular fish, nothing like it with human teeth!” shared Mrs. Clinton. “My son told me that it really struggled, but he was able to pull it out.”
The Clinton family decided to post photos of the unusual fish on social media, and ask locals if they knew what it was?
“Oh my God, those are human teeth!”, “What a horror!”, “Creepy fish!”, – commented online users.
Later the family learned that the fish they released back into the pond is called paku from the piranha family. This species is found in the waters of South America. Unlike its bloodthirsty piranha relatives, the paku is mostly vegitarian with square teeth and a small bite.
How it got into a pond in a suburb north of Oklahoma City is still a mystery to wildlife officials, who suspect it was a pet that outgrew its tank and was released into the wild.
Although these nasty fish are generally harmless to humans, the pacu has earned the disturbing nickname “biters.”
“He stayed at the pond late that night trying to catch it again,” Gianna said of her son, “But he never succeeded.”
