An official website of the United States government.

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

National Invasive Species Information Center
U.S. Department of Agriculture
  1. Home
  2. Aquatic Invasives
  3. Fish and Other Aquatic Vertebrates
  4. Red-Bellied Pacu

Red-Bellied Pacu

Scientific Name

Piaractus brachypomus (Cuvier, 1817) (ITIS)

Common Name

Red-bellied pacu, pirapitinga

Native To

South America (Di Santo et al. 2018)

Date of U.S. Introduction

Individual specimens have been caught since the 1960s, but no reproducing populations have yet become established in the U.S. (NAS Database)

Means of Introduction

Probably through aquarium releases or fish farm escapes (Di Santo et al. 2018)

Impact

Environmental impact is unknown (NAS Database)

Red-bellied pacu

Red-bellied pacu, adults

Credit

Photo by U.S. Geological Survey

Source
Invasive.org.

Find more images

Distribution / Maps / Survey Status

All Resources

View and Filter All Red-Bellied Pacu Resources

Selected Resources

The section below contains highly relevant resources for this species, organized by source.

Partnership
Federal Government
Academic
Citations