A tentative set of growth parameters of the von Bertalanffy growth equation were estimated for the red-bellied piranha, Serrasalmus nattereri, a common characid of the Amazonas and adjacent floodplains, based on length-frequency data collected by R.H. Lowe-McConnell in Guyana. These parameters and related statistics are then used, along with published data from metabolic, field and feeding experiment data to estimate the relative food consumption of a population of S. nattereri. This is complemented with biological data assembled from the scattered literature on S. nattereri to provide a 'snapshot' of this species.