Volume 32, Plate XX / Ichthyology (Fish)

Pacu of Guiana (Male)

Myletes? pacu

A short-snouted, small-mouthed fish with sheep-like molar teeth set in sockets, an elliptical compressed body with an almost trenchant obscurely serrated belly, brownish red with blackish spots near the dorsal fin and four fasciae toward the tail. Internally impregnated and sixteen to twenty-four inches long, weighing six to ten pounds, it ascends to the savannahs to spawn, then returns to feed on the weyra; the Indians shoot it with arrows or trap it in stone enclosures, salting great numbers.