A Russian fisherman got the surprise of his life after reeling in a catch when he realised that the fish he had just caught had human-looking teeth. Aleks Korobov thought he had hooked a common bream but closer inspection revealed that the fish had almost an entire row of teeth on the bottom jaw.
The 50-year-old angler, who lives in Arkhangelsk in North West Russia, immediately rushed to his local pub to show the fish off to his friends – who at first thought Aleks was joking when he told them of the catch. One friend, Ppal Anton Efimov, said ‘We know Aleks can tell some tales but when he came in and said he had a fish with human teeth we thought he’d certainly been drinking. But then he got it out and we were totally shocked… None of us had ever seen anything like it in our lives.’
Mr Korobov then contacted the Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography to get an expert opinion on the strange discovery. Institute expert Gennady Dvorykankin said ‘We had to do an autopsy and carry out a series of examinations to determine the species and an explanation for the teeth. We are convinced it is a member of the Piranha family, and that it is an herbivore piranha – not one of the meat eating ones you see in films.’ The fish was already dead when Mr Korobov caught it, so experts theorise that it has been dumped by an owner of exotic fish, rather than finding its way to the Arctic waters from somewhere tropical.