| spurgeonryan said: That had to be the most painful thing ever! i guess this could be considered child birth for a man since it had to be on the same level for pain! |
Have you not seen Animal Planet/Discovery Channel's show called "River Monsters"? There is a parasitic catfish (mind you, there are over 2,000 different catfish species in the world) in the Amazon that has done the same thing to the man, only thing is that this catfish eats its victims from the inside out. It's called a Candiru (candy-roo).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Monsters
| 6 | "Amazon Flesheaters" | 10 May 2009 | 2 May 2010 |
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Featured Animals: Piraíba catfish, Jaú catfish, Redtail catfish, Candiru, Candiru-Acù, Payara Following a report of a fisherman swallowed whole, Jeremy Wade travels to South America in search of the Amazon's largest catfish: the Piraiba. Arriving there, Wade not only tries to catch this monster, but discovers that it belongs to a whole family of Amazonian killers. He finds the Candiru, a small blood-sucking catfish that has entered a man's body in the most horrifying of places, and the Candiru-Acù, a small catfish that swarms around and drills holes in dead or dying animals (including humans), eating them from the inside. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candiru
Candiru
| Candiru | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Vandellia cirrhosa | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Siluriformes |
| Superfamily: | Loricarioidea |
| Family: | Trichomycteridae Bleeker, 1858 |
Candiru (English and Portuguese) or candirú (Spanish), also known as cañero, toothpick fish, or vampire fish, are a number of genera of parasitic freshwater catfish in the family Trichomycteridae; all are native to the Amazon River. Although some candiru species have been known to grow to a size of 16 inches (~41 cm) in length, others are considerably smaller. These smaller species are known for an alleged tendency to invade and parasitise the human urethra; however, despite ethnological reports dating back to the late 19th century,[1] the first documented case of the removal of a candiru from a human urethra did not occur until 1997.
The definition of candiru differs between authors. The word has been used to refer to only Vandellia cirrhosa, the entire genus Vandellia, the subfamily Vandelliinae, or even the two subfamilies Vandelliinae and Stegophilinae.[2][3][4][5]
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[edit] Physical description
Candirus are small fish. Adults can grow to around 15 cm with a rather small head and a belly that can appear distended, especially after a large blood meal. The body is translucent making it quite difficult to spot in the turbid waters of its home. There are short sensory barbels around the head, together with short, backward pointing spines on the gill covers.[6]
[edit] Location and habitat
Candirus (Vandellia) inhabit the Amazon and Orinoco rivers of lowland Amazonia, where they constitute part of the Neotropical fish fauna. Candirus are hematophagous and parasitize the gills of larger Amazonian fishes, especially catfishes of the family Pimelodidae (Siluriformes).
[edit] Attacks on humans: myth vs. fact
Although lurid anecdotes of attacks on humans abound, very few cases have been verified, and some alleged traits of the fish have been discredited as myth or superstition.
[edit] Historical accounts
The earliest published report on this candiru attacking human hosts comes from German biologist C. F. P. von Martius in 1829, who never actually observed it, but rather was told about it by the native people of the area, including that men would tie a ligature around their penis while going into the river to prevent this from happening. Other sources also suggest that other tribes in the area used various forms of protective coverings for their genitals while bathing, though it was also suggested that these were to prevent bites from piranha. Martius also speculated that the fish were attracted by the "odor" of urine.[7] Later experimental evidence showed this to be false, as the fish actually hunt by sight and have no attraction to urine at all.[8]
Another report from French naturalist Frances de Castelnau in 1855 relates an allegation by local Araguay fisherman, saying that it is dangerous to urinate in the river as the fish "springs out of the water and penetrates into the urethra by ascending the length of the liquid column."[9] While Castelnau himself dismissed this claim as "absolutely preposterous," and the fluid mechanics of such a thing occurring literally defy the laws of physics, it remains one of the more stubborn myths about the candiru. It has been suggested this claim evolved out of the real observation that certain species of fish in the Amazon will gather at the surface near the point where a urine stream enters, having been attracted by the noise and agitation of the water. [10]
In 1836 Eduard Poeppig documented a statement by a local physician in Pará, known only as Dr. Lacerda, who offered an eyewitness account of a case where a candiru had entered a human orifice. However it was lodged in a native woman's vagina, rather than a male urethra. He relates that the fish was extracted after external and internal application of the juice from a Xagua plant (believed to be a name for Genipa americana). Another account was documented by biologist George A. Boulenger from a Brazilian physician named Dr. Bach, who examined a man and several boys whose penises had been amputated. Bach believed this was a remedy performed because of parasitism by candiru, but he was merely speculating as he did not speak his patient's language.[11] American biologist Eugene Willis Gudger noted the area the patients were from did not have candiru in its rivers, and suggested the amputations were much more likely the result of having been attacked by piranha.[10]
In 1891, naturalist Paul Le Cointe provides a rare first-hand account of a candiru entering a human body, and like Lacerda's account, it involved the fish being lodged in the vaginal canal, not the urethra. Le Cointe actually removed the fish himself, by pushing it forward to disengage the spines, turning it around and removing it head-first.[12]
Gudger, in 1930, noted there have been several other cases reported wherein the fish entered the vaginal canal, but not a single case of a candiru entering the anus was ever documented. According to Gudger, this lends credence to the unlikelihood of the fish entering the male urethra, based on the comparatively small opening that would only accommodate the most immature members of the species.[10]
[edit] Modern case
To date, there is only one documented case of a candiru entering a human urinary system, which took place in Brazil in 1997.[13] In this incident, the victim (a 23 year old man known only as "F.B.") claimed a candiru "jumped" from the water into his urethra as he urinated while thigh-deep in a river.[14] The victim underwent a two-hour urological surgery by Dr. Anoar Samad to remove the fish from his body.[13]
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][8] Indeed, the fish appears not to have any response to any chemical attractants, and primarily hunts by visual tracking.[8]
[edit] In literature
William S. Burroughs wrote about the candiru in his 1959 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".[15] 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".[16]
