If you ever wondered what gives Amazonian small fish nightmares, here’s the answer. Hydrolycus tatauaia is a saber-toothed tetra that impales its prey with the extremely elongated teeth in its lower jaw, making escape impossible. Once the prey has wriggled to death, it is devoured. These teeth are so long that when the mouth is closed, they are pushed into specially designed cavities in the upper jaw and skull, like a saber into a sheath. Sweet dreams…
In terms of color, Hydrolycus tatauaia, which by the way is widely distributed in the warm clear water rivers of tropical South America (Amazonas, Orinoco, Guyana countries) and can grow a good 60 cm long and weigh 2.7 kg, is the prettiest of its clan. Not only the fins are strongly tinted red-orange, also the back shows this tint. Among themselves and against fish that are not considered food, Hydrolycus are peaceful. One must be rather careful whom one puts to the saber-toothed tetras, because they are somewhat jumpy and cannot deal well with boorish behavior.
It goes without saying that such fish are only suitable for specialists and show aquariums. For the care it is very important that the water is as little bacterial loaded as possible, saber-toothed tetras like it warm (26-30°C) and have a high metabolism, therefore a good biological filtration is indispensable.
For our customers: the animals have code 259336 on our stocklist. Please note that we only supply wholesale.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
| Angaben zum Tier | |
|---|---|
| Herkunft | Peru |
| Verfügbare Größe in cm | 14-22 |
