Talk:Pacu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 Pacu was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: No date specified. To provide a date use: {{FailedGA|insert date in any format here}}
Fish Portal
This article is part of WikiProject Fishes, an attempt to organise a detailed guide to all topics related to Fish taxa. To participate, you can edit the attached article, or contribute further at WikiProject Fishes. This project is an offshoot of the WikiProject Tree of Life
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Did You Know An entry from Pacu appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 11 August 2006.
Wikipedia

Contents

[edit] Misleading information

"Additionally, pacú are usually available in pet stores when they are a mere 2-3 inches long, but, unlike other breeds of fish, their growth is not inhibited by a small tank.[3]"

This information is slightly misleading, while it is accurate about the Pacu requiring a large tank, it implies that other large fish can live in small tanks with no ill effects. Large fish that are forced to inhabit small aquaria often suffer serious medical problems due to the fact that their internal organs carry on growing after their outer body has stopped. Therefore I think this section should be slightly reworded.

[edit] Pacu found in Utah Lake

Angler catches strange piranha-like fish in Utah Lake 166.70.233.89 02:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I added this and other recent news stories about US introductions into the main article. Neil916 15:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Future merge

This article may want to be merged into the species article Colossoma macropomum once it is created. Alternatively, we may want to create a whole "Pacu" disambiguation page since Fishbase lists several different species with the word "Pacu" in the common name. Neil916 15:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


I've expanded this article considerably now. Should the Piaractus mesopotamicus article be merged with this one now? Or will there be pages on each of the various pacu species?--Renice 19:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Accent removed from "Pacú"

I added accents on the fish's name (where it wasn't quoted from other sources without accents). It could be argued that they're not needed since this is an English article, and the word is most often spelled without the accent in English. However, I noted that the NY Times editors used the accent; see Rohter, Larry. "Big Fish, Little Fish Battle Over the Amazon's Bounty", NY Times, 2004-10-26.  --Renice 17:54, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Pacu has no accent in the Portuguese language, as it is a word ended in U with the stress on the last syllable. --Zelani 11:00, 11 August 2006 (BST)
Ahh, thanks! --Renice 13:25, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Removed alternative listed ("Pacu" or "pacú"). Once again, "Pacú" is a grammatical error. Barring dipthongs or hiati, no word ending in "u" in Portuguese carries an accent, for no reason whatsoever. I also corrected the IPA pronunciation, as it reflected an English rendering of the word. --Zelani 13:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quotations from T. Roosevelt book

I added quotations from Teddy Roosevelt's memoir of a Brazilian trip, specifically because he talks about eating pacús, and methods of catching them. I think this is important because I haven't found any other sources that refer to the pacú as a food source. I will add citations as quickly as I can figure out how to do so; I'm actually referencing Bartleby's online version of Roosevelt's book. I believe this qualifies as Fair Use. --Renice 18:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photos needed

Could use some more photos: of various species; something showing teeth more clearly; image of prepared pacu dish; on fishing lines or in nets... ?

 It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality.
The Free Image Search Tool (FIST) may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

--Renice 20:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I've sent a request to Claus Qvist Jessen for permission to use his pacu and piranha teeth photos posted at http://www.cqj.dk/fisk-eng.htm.
--Renice 22:23, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I'd also sent a request to Thorke Østergaard for permission to use his photo of a pacu at a fish market, and he agreed (see User_talk:Renice/Photo_Permissions). So there's now a great photo for sense of scale. --Renice 22:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Is it illegal to make the top photo lighter? I think I know how to make it lighter and visible. - THE GREAT GAVINI {T|C|#} 08:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Since the photo was loaded with a GNU Free Documentation License, I think it should be OK to edit it and reload it. I would probably load the edited version as a new file, but I don't know if that's the accepted way to do it... ? --Renice 13:30, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subfamily name change to Serrasalminae

Checking through the 69 species of pacú on FishBase (note not all the fish listed on this page are pacu -- the search included names that had p-a-c-u in their common name), I found that all are listed in the subfamily Serrasalminae. Therefore, I've changed the subfamily in the taxobox to Serrasalminae from Characinae. Their relationship to piranha makes a little more sense this way too. --Renice 17:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Btw, I believe there should be a separate page for Serrasalminae -- it should not be redirected to piranha since pacú are also in the subfamily. --Renice 17:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually I'm now confused about the correct Family and Subfamily. A couple of sources (http://www.opefe.com/serrasalminae.html and http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/classification/path/Serrasalmidae.html#Serrasalmidae) suggest the taxobox should possibly be:
Class: Actinopterygii
Subclass: Neopterygii
Infraclass: Teleostei
Superorder: Ostariophysi
Order: Cypriniformes
Suborder: Charocoidei
Family: Serrasalmidae
and piranha should also have Subfamily: Serasalminae
ITIS isn't coming up so I'm unable to check it there...
--Renice 03:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article

This article doesn't focus on the Pacu fish in their natural environments much. Instead, it focuses on human interaction with the fish. It needs to broadened before it can become a Good Article. Everything else is great. Nice job on the referencing. --GoOdCoNtEnT 19:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I read this pretty nice article, I did want to add however that fish don't stay small based on their tank size. That's a very common misconception but one that is never borne out & is a well-known "myth" in aquarist circles. ALL fish will continue to their adult size or else die from stress (more likely in the case of fish larger than home aquaria can typically handle). You cannot control or stunt their growth like a bonzai tree. In otehr words, all fish are like the Pacu, it's only exceptional insofar as it is especially large for a pet fish & a miserable candidate for home aquaria, not unlike parrotfish or sharks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.120.57.3 (talk • contribs) .

I agree, I made the edit concerning the size. It seems to imply that there are fish that will grow to thier environment, which simply is not true.

[edit] Image request

Someone requested images of the fish, one request was of prepared pacu. I found this image [1], can someone verify if that is pacu? --Inahet 00:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to say from the photo -- given the title, I'd assume they ordered "pacu" from a menu. However, this photo [2] seems to be a different perspective on the same dish, and the teeth look more like piranhas'. It may be irrelevant because of copyright though. --Renice 04:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually both photos can be uploaded since both have Creative Commons Attribution Licenses, v. 2.0., like this photo I uploaded. So if it is pacu, anyone can upload it. Anyway, the fish's tail in the image of prepared pacu doesn't match that of a piranha but it does look like that of the pacu fish. --Inahet 16:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Good points! The author provided me some details on the dish, and I've added it to page. Thanks! --Renice 22:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad that I was of some help. Inahet 01:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scott Curry

Shouldn't info on the Pacu with human-like teeth caught by Scott Curry be included? Tim Long 05:47, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a link in External links to a video of him and his catch. There's also a link to an article about him from the Texas catch refs. --Renice 13:19, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article's future

Pacu are not considered a clade or valid taxonomic group; they're more of a "folk" grouping. This article treats the folk grouping, which I think is appropriate. I'm going to change the dab line at the top, though, to link to Pacu (disambiguation), which dab's among individual species as well as unrelated uses of the word. --Ginkgo100talk 19:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, I boldly reorganized the article. Also, after reading some of the refs, it's apparent that this may be a valid taxonomic group, but a controversial one. I think this strengthens this article's case for future GA status. --Ginkgo100talk 19:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi Ginkgo. It's great that you're reorganizing this. In my understanding, Pacu is kind of semi-taxonomic, similarly to the situation of the mbuna. Members of the subfamily Serrasalminae are commonly known either as pacu, piranha, or silver dollar depending on the genera AND obvious physical features (large herbivores = pacu, schooling carnivores = piranha, smaller silvery fishes = silver dollars). But these names could overlap and don't always correlate with the current taxonomy. You might wanna check out Tilapia which is also going through a reorganizing due to confusion of taxonomy and common names. --Melanochromis 20:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help

In a larger, 200 U.S. gallons aquarium (@756 metric liters), how many adult Pacus could be sucessfully raised from a 5-6 cm ,or two to three inch size, and enjoyed as "pets"? Is a large plecostomus compatible with these fish, and how aggressive are they amongst themselves? Would other fish work with them too? Perhaps the proper information can be integrated into the article, or an offshoot of the article. Thanks, Dr. Dan 02:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Dr. Dan. I'm afraid a 200 gallons aquarium isn't big enough for multiple pacus. They will outgrow the tank and the dominant one will bully the others if there's not enough space to swim away. I used to have 2 black pacus in a medium sized pond and the bigger one kept bullying the smaller one all the time. In a more confined area, the aggression would probably be much worse I think. But my pacus ignored unrelated fish though. There were tons of various mbuna and other cichlids sharing the ponds, and I didn't see any got chased by the pacus. So my suggestion is that you keep a single pacu with other unrelated large fish, or instead of pacu, you can probably keep a small group of silver dollars which might be easier to manage in a 200 galllons tank. Cheers, --Melanochromis 03:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, and one pacu and say, five silver dollars in such a tank, O.K., or not O.K.? Dr. Dan 21:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
PLEASE DO NOT GET A PACU! 200 gallons is *not enough* to house even ONE pacu. Pacu will grow in excess of 3 feet in home aquaria and they are extremely powerful -- they can very easily break glass if they do not have enough room to move around. Here is a tank specs thread by Debra Mark (a member of Aquaria Central who has a 3240 gallon tank that contained a 25 year old pacu. The pacu passed away last year at 28 years of age): http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35644 Look at the SIZE of that fish and please reconsider. Get some piranha or something, but not pacu. Roan Art 15:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. These are very large fish not suited to any home aquarium. Only a public aquarium can maintain pacu in the long term. --Ginkgo100talk 20:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and another thing -- vegetarian or not, pacu have very powerful dentition and could probably take your finger off. --Ginkgo100talk 20:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)