Species information
Appearance information
"What the hell was what?"—Lumpy,
upon hearing the Piranhadon
Piranhadon titanus ("piranha-toothed") is a huge species of fish native to Skull Island.
At fifty feet long, it dwarves some whales, and is one of the largest animals native to Skull Island; probably the largest aquatic animal.
Piranhadon is a river-dwelling hunter that specializes in taking its prey from the riverbanks when they come down to drink. Thus, they tend to remain in the open waterways, where they have sufficient room to move and the water is clean enough to breathe.
Piranhadon has poor vision, only being able to discern prey's silhouettes, using the barbels on its chin to sense vibrations and the light from the surface to detect passing prey. They regularly hunted Foetodon.
When Jack Driscoll, Carl Denham, and Ben Hayes' rescue team for Anne Darrow are crossing a swamp, they are attacked by a lone Piranhadon, which eats three sailors.
Physical appearance and biology[]
Males rarely grow to be longer than 20 feet in length.
Colouration looks to be greenish-black above and white below. A dorsal fin runs the length of the Piranhadon's back, while two huge pectoral fins serve to steer its bulk.
Two barbels depend from the fish's lower jaw, and the mouth has numerous sharp, pointed teeth, each of which are about the size of an adult human's forearm.
Behaviour and ecology[]
Piranhadon is a river-dwelling hunter that specializes in taking its prey from the riverbanks when they come down to drink. Thus, they tend to remain in the open waterways, where they have sufficient room to move and the water is clean enough to breathe.
Young are born live in groups of around a dozen. Already five feet long at birth, a juvenile Piranhadon is already a dangerous aquatic predator, and will devour water birds, fish, amphibians, small dinosaurs, and just about anything else it can catch, including larger terrestrial animals such as Foetodon. Young Foetodon are common prey, floating on the surface in their nursery groups.
An ambush predator, Piranhadon tends to lie in wait near the river banks, using its sensitive barbels to detect the approach of potential prey, as its eyes are poor and can only see differences between light and dark.
A surge of its enormous body, and it will lunge out of the water, taking its prey in its jaws, either killing it with a massive bite or dragging it down below the surface to drown.
Piranhadon also use their lunging ability and powerful pectoral fins to occasionally beach themselves on a shaded river bank. Once ashore, birds, lizards, and other scavengers will flock to the huge fish, picking it clean of innumerable parasites. They will remain there until heat, dryness, and the threat of suffocation forces them back in the water.
During the mating season, the smaller males must compete for the affections of the unwilling females; only the strongest and fastest could catch up with the fleeing female.
In King Kong[]
When Jack Driscoll, Carl Denham, and Ben Hayes's rescue team for Ann Darrow were attacked by a group of Scorpiopede's whilst traveling across a swamp on rafts. The Scorpiopedes all flee when a Piranhadon approaches under the water, unknown to the sailors.
The Piranhadon lifting up the raft
It first attacked the first raft, before it moved on to the second. The fish attacked from behind, lifted up the back end and pushed it towards the first raft. The raft breaks in half, throwing Jack, Jimmy, Preston, Choy and three sailors into the water.
One of the sailors was thrown underwater along with Jack, and Choy couldn't swim causing Lumpy to help him. The sailor tried to swim back up to the surface, but is quickly caught in the jaws of the Piranhadon. It then gives chase to Jack again, but he manages to swim through the roots of a mangrove tree, causing the Piranhadon to momentarily get its mouth jammed open when it tries to eat him, but bites the roots.
The fish then leaps fully out of the water, grabbing and swallowing on of the sailors still in the water.
Carl, now on Hayes' raft, grabs a machine gun an begins to shoot at the fish, but only manages to shoot through the middle of the raft, breaking it in half, throwing everyone into the water. As Jack swims toward the wreckage, the Piranhadon chases him again. Carl's shoots at it, and this time manages to ward it off.
The Piranhadon leaps out of the water
The group manage to drag themselves up onto the sure using the mangroves, and Carl grabs his camera, filming as the last man in the water is grabbed by the Piranhadon and dragged away.
In Peter Jackson's King Kong[]
Although Piranhadon does not appear in the game, a very similar, snakelike creature called a cave serpent does. They, however, do not feature fins and slither around on the walls of caves.
They only appear in one Kong level, Fight In The Lair, attacking from the walls. They must all be killed. There are some baby serpents there as well, but Kong can kill them easily.
The small swampcrawler also bears some resemblance to the Piranhadon.
Behind the scenes[]
The Piranhadon portion of the swamp scene was cut for pacing purposes, but appears on the deluxe extended version of the film, along with all the other deleted scenes.
The entire swamp scene was shot in a tank in the studio backlot, the same one used for the Skull Island coastline.
The Piranhadon was named by Billy Dixon. It was called the swamp monster during production.
Merchandise[]
As with other creatures featured in King Kong, an articulated figure of the Piranhadon and Kong himself is available. The Piranhadon is entirely rubber, and bendy, with the exception of the head piece. The lower jaw can snap open.
An ornamental bust of the Piranhadon bursting out of the water and destroying the raft is also available.
Known victims[]
The Piranhadon killed three of Hayes' sailors, swallowing them whole.
Kill gallery[]
Appearances[]
- King Kong (first appearance)
- Peter Jackson's King Kong (similar animals)
- The World of Kong