Although lurid anecdotes of attacks on humans abound, there is only one documented case of a candiru entering a human orifice.[7] In this instance, the victim had a candiru swim into his urethra as he urinated while thigh-deep in a river.[8] Jeremy Wade, a British biologist, investigated this incident for the Animal Planet's River Monsters.[9] The victim underwent a two-hour urological surgery to remove the candiru. Dr. D. Scott Smith, Chief of Infectious Diseases at Kaiser Permanente, described the candiru as having spikes to assist it clinging to its host.[10]

It was also once thought that the fish was attracted to urine, as the candiru's primary prey emits urea from its gills, but this was later discredited in formal experimentation.[4][11]

"The candiru usually targets a big fish as its host, drinking blood from its gills, but occasionally they make mistakes. This has resulted in one of the most infamous legends to emerge from the Amazon: a man urinating in the river who has a fish swim up his penis." – Jeremy Wade, biologist.

Indeed, the fish appears not to have any response to any chemical attractants, and primarily hunts by visual tracking.[11] Bathers in the region are, however, warned not to urinate while swimming, out of concern that the expansion of the urethra during urination will allow the fish to enter the otherwise closed orifice.[8]

Traditional treatment for candiru is said to involve the use of extracts from the jagua or jenipapo plant (Genipa americana) and the Buitach apple, as it is thought that these two plants together will kill and then dislodge the fish.[12] However surgery is now generally the preferred approach.[13]

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William S. Burroughs wrote about the candiru in his novel Naked Lunch, describing it as "a small eel-like fish or worm about one-quarter inch through and two inches long patronizing certain rivers of ill repute in the Greater Amazon Basin, will dart up your prick or your arsehole or a woman's cunt faute de mieux, and hold himself there by sharp spines with precisely what motives is not known since no one has stepped forward to observe the candiru's life-cycle in situ".[14] Burroughs also mentioned it in The Yage Letters: "At that time I was stationed at the remote jungle outpost of Candiru, so named from a tiny eel like fish that infests the rivers of that area. This vicious fish introduces itself into the most intimate parts of the human body, maintaining itself there by poisonous barbs while it feeds on the soft membranes".[15]

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Šito mītu varētu palaist pret baseinos čurātajiem

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