Fisherman Jim DePersia thought he found a piranha in the waters of Cedar Lake, Ill., but it was something almost as nutty: A testicle-eating fish called a pacu.
DePersia, 64, hooked the bizarre fish in the lake near his home. One look at its sharp teeth and immediately he thought he'd reeled in the fearsome Amazonian species. It was a big one, weighing nearly seven pounds and measuring about 20 inches in length.
“As I came up and looked at it, I thought I knew my fish and this is a huge monster,” he told CBS Chicago.
The freaky-looking fish was actually a pacu, a cousin of the piranha that has been known to mistake human testicles for tree nuts, a staple of its diet.
In 2011, two men in New Guinea reportedly died from blood loss after a pacu devoured their treasured family jewels, the Metro reported.
Pacus are tropical fish so it's likely that DePersia's catch was dumped in the lake by a collector.
DePersia plans to have a ball with his surprise.
“I’ll probably stuff it and put it on my porch there when I get it done,” he told CBS Chicago.
This isn't the first time that the genital-biting fish have been found in Illinois. In July, 2012, one was found in Lake Lou Yaeger, and eyewitnesses believed another was still on the loose.
Pacu have been found across the U.S.. In September, Tom Boylan reeled one in from a lake in Passaic County, N.J., NJ.com reported.
The fish invasion is happening in Europe as well. A pacu was also found near Paris in September, and there was a sighting in Sweden in August, HuffPost UK reported.
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