Serrasalminae indet.
A piranha is any of a number of freshwater fish species in the subfamily Serrasalminae, of the family Serrasalmidae, in the order Characiformes. These fish inhabit South American rivers, floodplains, lakes and reservoirs. Although often described as extremely predatory and mainly feeding on fish, their dietary habits vary extensively, and they will also take plant material, leading to their classification as omnivorous.

H. Zell · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
Time the record covers
At least 54 million years on record.
The record covers at least 66 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 72.2 Mya to 5.333 Mya.
39 occurrences of Serrasalminae indet. on record, most of them in the Miocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
39 occurrences- Late Cretaceous5%
- Paleocene1%
- Eocene25%
- Oligocene32%
- Miocene36%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
6 formations
- Pozo Formation17
- Pebas Formation13
- Chambira Formation4
- El Molino Formation · Puca Group2
- Muñani Formation · Puno Group2
- Ipururo Formation1
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The named rock units Serrasalminae indet. has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Serrasalminae indet. and its relatives
MioceneWhere Serrasalminae indet. and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
235 taxa- Hydrolycus19 sites
- Characiformes18 sites
- Leporinus18 sites
- Trichodactylidae18 sites
- Caviomorpha13 sites
- Caimaninae12 sites
- Gavialoidea12 sites
- Testudines9 sites
- Anura8 sites
- Plantae8 sites
- Potamotrygon canaanorum8 sites
- Serrasalminae <pacu-like>8 sites
- Eusuchia7 sites
- Lepidosirenidae7 sites
- Siluriformes7 sites
- Charophyceae6 sites
- Loricariidae6 sites
- Octodontoidea6 sites
- Pyrotheria6 sites
- Raskyella pecki meridionale6 sites
- Serrasalminae <piranha-like>6 sites
- Spermatophyta6 sites
- Anostomidae5 sites
- Eoincamys valverdei5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Serrasalminae indet., and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
4 references- A 60-million-year Cenozoic history of western Amazonian ecosystems in Contamana, eastern Peru26
- Biotic community and landscape changes around the Eocene–Oligocene transition at Shapaja, Peruvian Amazonia: Regional or global drivers?9
- Age and stratigraphic reassessment of the fossil-bearing Laguna Umayo red mudstone unit, SE Peru, from regional stratigraphy, fossil record, and paleomagnetism2
- Middle Maastrichtian vertebrates (fishes, amphibians, dinosaurs and other reptiles, mammals) from Pajcha Pata (Bolivia). Biostratigraphic, palaeoecologic and palaeobiogeographic implications2
Each of the 39 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Serrasalminae indet.
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- H. Zell
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Serrasalminae indet. was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Piranha”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.