They’re less terrifying than you think

They’re less terrifying than you think — but still, those teeth

By Juan Siliezar Harvard Staff Writer

Source: harvard

5/6/2022

Credit: Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

Peter B. Kilian remembers leaving Logan Airport with Brittany Walsh in mid-February and having a single thought as he looked left and right at other drivers: “They don’t know our car is filled with piranhas.”

Known for their fearsome teeth and bloody B-movie feasts, the fish are illegal to own in Massachusetts. Kilian wasn’t aware of that when he decided that studying their predation behavior would be a “cool” project for the Bellono Lab, which investigates how molecular and cellular adaptations lead to unique behavioral functions in organisms.