You may have heard that piranhas only eat meat. In fact, red-bellied piranhas also eat plants and fruit.

A red-bellied piranha is a fish. It lives in rivers in South America. It lives in the Amazon River.

Its belly is red. Its body is gray, with bits of silver. It has rows of sharp teeth.

It eats other fish. It also eats shrimp and worms. It eats insects too.

A good part of its food is fins. It nips them from the tails of larger fish.

Piranhas live in groups called shoals. They tend to travel in schools of 20 or more.

Males build nests in the mud and sand. The nests are at the bottom of the water.

The eggs are laid in bunches. The bunches are stuck to plants under the water.

In the river, the shoals swim by. The nests sit in the mud. The eggs stick to plants.

Words to know

• shoals: fish groups
• insects: small bugs
• nests: baby homes