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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