• Björn Tantau
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    10124 days ago

    A friend who works at a zoo told me that once a co worker fell into the piranha pool while cleaning. They couldn’t be found for weeks. The piranhas that is. They were too scared to come out of their hiding places.

  • @Elaine@lemm.ee
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    5824 days ago

    This is good to know. Like quick sand, as a kid I thought piranhas would be a much more common problem than they are.

    • Toes♀
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      1624 days ago

      Quicksand is still a thing, like freshly poured foundation or mud at the bottom of a pond.

      • 𝕾𝖕𝖎𝖈𝖞 𝕿𝖚𝖓𝖆
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        24 days ago

        Quicksand was never a problem for me, but growing up on a farm, soft mud was a common occurrence. Good news is you can pretty immediately tell when you’re walking through the stuff and can just…turn around. Worst that happens is you lose a boot, and that genuinely sucks.

        But it’s not the kind of thing you step into and you’re up to your knee in 2 seconds.

        • themeatbridge
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          1724 days ago

          Unless you panic and thrash about. The force required to pull your leg out is more than the force of buoyancy keeping you up. So if you are up to your hips, and you just try to step out, you will keep sinking. Once your chest is under, it will be hard to breathe and the panic gets worse.

          • WIZARD POPE💫
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            224 days ago

            Could be. I have never encountered quicksand but I have heard that you don’t really sink past your waist.

            • @onion@feddit.de
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              624 days ago

              Most quicksand probably isn’t that deep, so you’ll end up standing on a more solid layer

              • WIZARD POPE💫
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                324 days ago

                Exactly. I doubt there is a 2m deep pit of quicksand I need to be worried about

            • @Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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              024 days ago

              i believe it follows similar laws as water and buoyancy. you slow/stop sinking once the displaced water/force is greater than whats above the sand. Similar to deep eater, panicking only allows you to sink more.

          • @Xephonian@retrolemmy.com
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            124 days ago

            Nope. Sand+water is less buoyant than you. You float. Death comes from dehydration or exhaustion. Not from drowning.

            • themeatbridge
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              24 days ago

              I’m not sure you read my comment.

              Sand and water forms a non-newtonian fluid that compresses under pressure. Once you sink into it, pulling out requires exponentially more force. You’re correct that you would float on quicksand if buoyancy was the only force involved. However, if you end up with both feet in, and you’re sinking, the first impulse is to try to step up and out. Unfortunately, lifting one foot pressed the other deeper into the quicksand. If you remain perfectly still, you’ll stop sinking at your waist. But if you move your legs, you will sink further down and your buoyancy won’t lift you back out unless and until the quicksand gels again.

                • themeatbridge
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                  923 days ago

                  Lay flat and reach the edge. Unless you jumped out into the middle, you should be within arms reach of solid ground. Don’t try to pull your legs out until you have something to grab onto.

              • @Xephonian@retrolemmy.com
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                119 days ago

                If you remain perfectly still, you’ll stop sinking at your waist

                I’m not sure you understand buoyancy. Floating objects float, they don’t sink no matter how much thrashing about. And while quicksand is denser than water, it’s still not dense enough to float a human at their waist, it’s actually around their chest.

                Nobody dies from drowning in quicksand. Ever. It’s always dehydration/fatigue.

                • themeatbridge
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                  019 days ago

                  I’m not sure you understand what a non-newtonian fluid is. A toothpick would float on jello, but if you stick it down into the jello, its buoyancy doesn’t factor in. Quicksand compresses and becomes solid under force, and if you try to walk out, you’re more likely to pull yourself deeper. The force of you floating is weaker than the force of compressed quicksand keeping you down.

                  And I didn’t say that anyone drowns, I said it gets hard to breathe if you manage to sink up to your chest. You’re right about the dehydration and fatigue, but it is due to panic. If you can float, then you could just lie on your back and roll your way to the edge. But once you’re in deep, it would take a tow truck to drag your legs out against the force of the gelled quicksand.

  • Patapon Enjoyer
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    24 days ago

    Also extremely easy to fish cause they’re stupid. Gotta be careful when removing the hook though, bring a plier.

  • DumbAceDragon
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    23 days ago

    Applies to snakes as well.

    Slight tangent, but it always cracks me up when in movies they show a pit of venomous snakes and it’s a bunch of pythons, boas, and colubrids. Even better when they add hissing and rattling in post lol.

  • FuglyDuck
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    723 days ago

    “They mostly prey on the weak…”

    Whelp. I’m fucked.

    Jokes aside, I’m worried about everything else in the rivers. Like, the anacondas. And stuff.

    Good news is they don’t eat junk food…

  • Adkml [he/him]
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    24 days ago

    They’re super pretty fish that have really cool colors and a face that’s so dumb it’s cute.

    One of the reasons I like Jeremy Wade (river monsters guy) was an early episode where he put a bunch of pirahnnas in a pool and stuck his feet in, then started walking around, then im pretty sure even put some blood in the water to disprove their “feeding frenzy” myth to show they were harmless.

    They’ll try to attack you if they’re starving which is sonethingthey have in common with literally every other animal.