The candiru mudcat has something of a slippy repute . As legend tell it , should someone quit to spend a penny in the freshwaters that skirt South America ’s rainforests , they might find themselves with a “ toothpick fish ” stuck up their urethra . While the legitimacy of such accounts seemsshaky at best , some candirus have found other ways to burrow inside humans .
Also known as vampire candirus owe to their thirstiness for blood , they will swim into fishes ’ gills and door latch onto major blood vessels to feed – which is the doings alleged to have motivated them to float up little gaps of all varieties . Whileurethras are a stint , a 2021 slip study publish in theJournal of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicinereveals the brutal way one “ human - biting candiru ” latched onto a mortal ’s skin as a means of getting a bellyful of blood .
“ The human - biting candiru from the subfamilyVandelliinae , a part of a scientifically undescribed genus and species , fasten to the back of a boy , ” read a photograph legend from the clause .
The human-biting candiru’s strong jaw make it difficult to remove. Image credit: Haddad et al, 2021. Journal of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine
“ Upon a forceful removal , the fish ’s oral cavity leaves a bleeding [ oval ] lesion at the affixation point . Note the candiru ’s abdomen full of bloodline , its stiff hold on the victim , and another bit to the right of the phlebotomize one . ”
The follow trope contains ancestry , proceed with caution .
While candiru catfishes bite humans is rarified , it’snot unheard of . live humans are commonly off the computer menu for most of these fish , but corpses are a unlike matter . Carrion - eating whale candirus will gormandise on the carcasses of river dolphins and other idle creature – include us – but two mintage take different approaches .
Cetopsis candiruwill bite into a carcase and basically twisting , creating a smashing tunnel into the tissue paper which it can apply to enter the body cavity and eat it from the inside out . These Pisces the Fishes will swarm , sometimes in their one C , in feast delirium .
The candiruCeptosis coecutienstakes an substitute approach , making rapid bites and rips to tear off chunks before coming back in for another bite . Both fish have been reported feed on human corpses , and their bite are so strong that they have left circular marks on skull bones .
However , reports of attacks by the as - of - yet undescribed “ human - biting candiru , ” as the authors call it , show that some of these Pisces appear to have a taste for our line , too . Using specialized dentition , they can latch onto human skin and hold on with strong head muscle which make them unmanageable to remove while they ’re feeding on rake .
While most report of candiru fishes ’ more cozy attacks on human seem to be built on myth , it seems the homo - prick candiru has other thought .
