Apparently, we
have dodged a bullet.
I am talking
about the candiru fish (sometimes called a toothpick fish). The candiru is a small parasitic catfish found in
the fresh waters of the Amazon Basin. In
simple terms, this fish is a kind of leach—a blood-sucking vampire.
Worse, the fish is
said to follow the urine streams of men urinating in the water so it can enter the
urethra of a man’s penis. Once inside
the penis, the fish fastens itself in place with barbs so it can go to work.
The first time I
heard about this fish, I had two thoughts. First, my buddy who owns a swimming pool, would
love to stock some of those in his swimming pool for those times when boys are swimming. Second, maybe I have been hanging onto myself
(so to speak) during times of duress for good reason.
According to
bbc.com: “German botanist Carl
Friedrich Philipp von Martius was the first European to document candirus in the Amazon. He
described how local men tied their urethras shut when spending time around the
water.”
Cutting to the
chase here, it seems the stories of candiru fish entering the penis are mostly exaggerated. There was, however, one incident documented
in 1997. That year, an unfortunate man from
Manaus, a city in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, was wheeled into an emergency
with a candiru in his urethra.
Investigations of
that story have led to skepticism.
In the end, pun
fully intended, the candiru fish does not seen near as threatening to a man’s
penis as myth might suggest.
Jungle spiders,
on the other hand, are real.
Candiru Fish
—Mitchell
Hegman
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