So difficult were they to catch that, out of desperation, one lieutenant, a man named Pyrineus, finally threw dynamite into a pond above a waterfall. As he splashed through the water below, eagerly gathering his spoils, he made the mistake of holding a piranha in his mouth while his hands were busy scooping up others. The fish had at first been stunned by the dynamite and so lay slack between his teeth, but as soon as it recovered, it attacked. Before Pyrineus had time to react, the piranha had taken a bite out of his tongue. He would have bled to death had the expedition’s doctor not stanched
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