Payara

About

The payara (Hydrolycus scomberoides) is one of those fish that turns heads the moment someone sees it, mainly because of those elongated canine teeth on the lower jaw, which slot into dedicated openings in the upper jaw so the mouth can actually close fully. It belongs to the dogtooth characin family Cynodontidae and comes from the Amazon River basin in South America, where adults roam open water as fully pelagic hunters. Juveniles behave quite differently, tending to hang at an oblique, head-down angle among cover. A posture thought to help them blend in. As adults, they shift to open swimming and need plenty of room to move. Despite the fearsome dentition, payara are actually peaceable toward tankmates large enough not to register as prey. They can even be kept in groups if the aquarium is big enough, though going with at least three at a time tends to work out better socially than keeping just a pair. A strict carnivore and almost certainly a fish-eater in the wild, so diet planning matters. Worth noting: this species is frequently mixed up with the much larger H. armatus, which gets too big for virtually any home aquarium. So double-check what you're buying before bringing one home.