A red-bellied piranha is a fish. It lives in rivers in South America. Its belly is red, and its gray body has bits of silver. It has rows of sharp teeth. It lives in the Amazon River, in big groups called shoals.

How big is a red-bellied piranha? It grows to about a foot long. The Los Angeles Zoo says about 12 inches. It can weigh up to 4 pounds. Both the National Zoo and the Los Angeles Zoo give this weight. A red-bellied piranha can live about 10 years.

What does a piranha eat? A red-bellied piranha eats other fish, and also shrimp and worms. It eats insects too. In the wild, a good part of its food is fins nipped from the tails of larger fish. You may have heard that piranhas only eat meat. In fact, they also eat plants and fruit.

Red-bellied piranhas tend to travel in schools of 20 or more. Male red-bellied piranhas build nests in the mud and sand at the bottom of the water. A mother fish can lay thousands of eggs. The eggs are laid in bunches and stuck to plants growing under the water.

Words to know

• shoals: fish groups
• weigh: be this heavy
• insects: small bugs