Movies and video games portray the piranha as dangerous and deadly. These fish can eat up to 68 grams in 30 seconds, so Lara Croft was not afraid of them for no reason…

The world of movies and video games has led us to believe that piranhas are much more dangerous animals than they really are. Like wolves or sharks, when we see them attacking our favorite characters, such as Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider saga, we believe that we are dealing with carnivorous fish that can devour a person in seconds. But is it really so? How long would it take piranhas to eat a person?

First, it’s time to demystify piranhas. At least the whole family.

Although there are indeed carnivorous piranha species, most of them are omnivores and even herbivores, their favourite food being pieces of fruit, plants, insects or molluscs.

In the case of carnivorous piranhas, if necessary, they will attack other, usually smaller fish.

Can piranhas eat you like Lara Croft in the Tomba Raider games?

So, can they eat a large mammal? It’s not entirely out of the question. We have to keep in mind, however, that despite their sharp teeth, they only do this when they find dead or seriously wounded prey. To do this, we would have to face groups of carnivorous piranhas (they usually move in swarms of between 10 and 100 piranhas). They should also be starving due to lacking their most common food. Ergo, the chances of a person being eaten by carnivorous piranhas are extremely low in reality.

For the sake of argument, imagine a human falling into the Amazon, where the species is native, as one New England aquarium keeper told Live Science magazine, applying the idea to a dog.

A piranha weighs about 541 grams. They usually eat about 12 grams of food in 30 seconds. However, if we are dealing with ravenous piranhas, it has happened that they have eaten up to 68 grams. This means an eighth of their body weight!

Now imagine that a seriously injured 80 kg person has just fallen into the water. If we subtract the bones, etc., then 60% of lean body mass remains. About 48 kg of meat, so in order to devour its entire body, we would need a total of 706 terribly hungry adult piranhas to strip the carcass down to the bones. However, to get there, they would need about 9 minutes to complete the process, which is quite an achievement, you must admit…

Source: Live Science, Aquarium Nexus