Editing Candiru (fish) (section)

==Alleged attacks on humans==
Although lurid [[anecdotal evidence|anecdotes]] of attacks on humans abound, only one somewhat questionable case has evidence behind it, and some alleged traits of the fish have been discredited as myth or superstition. It is likely that, while the fish's spines can cause physical trauma, it merely poses as much danger of actually entering a human as any other fish of its size.{{cn|date=November 2024}}

===Historical accounts===
The earliest published report of candiru attacking a human host comes from German biologist [[Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius|C. F. P. von Martius]] in 1829. The biologist never actually observed this; rather, von Martius was told about it by an interpreter relaying the speech of the native people of the area, who reported that men would tie ligatures around their penises while going into the river to prevent this from happening.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gonzalez |first=Alyssa |date=2023-03-20 |title=The Candiru: A Six-Inch SciCom Failure |url=https://www.talksciencetome.com/2023/03/20/the-candiru-a-six-inch-scicom-failure/ |access-date=2024-04-16 |website=Talk Science to Me |language=en-US}}</ref> 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.<ref>von Martius, C. F. P. 1829.Preface, p. viii, of van Spix, J. B., and Agassiz, L. Selecta Genera et Species Piscium ouos in Itinere ocr Brnsiliam annis 1817-20 Collcgit ... Dr. J. B. de Spix, etc. Monachii, 1829.</ref> Later experimental evidence has shown this to be false, as the fish actually hunt by sight and have no attraction to urine at all.<ref name="Spotte-etal">{{Cite journal |last1=Spotte |first1=Stephen |last2=Petry |first2=Paulo |last3=Zuanon |first3=Jansen A.S. |year=2001 |title=Experiments on the feeding behavior of the hematophagous candiru |journal=Environmental Biology of Fishes |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=459–464 |doi=10.1023/A:1011081027565|s2cid=40239152 }}</ref>

Another report, from French naturalist [[Francis de Laporte de Castelnau|Francis 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."<ref>CASTELNAU, FRANCIS DE. 1855. Expedition dans les Partics Cent&es de I'AmPrique du Sud, 1843 a 1847. Animaux Nouveaux ou Rares-Zoology. Paris, 3: 50, p1. 24, fig. 4.</ref> While Castelnau himself dismissed this claim as "absolutely preposterous", and the [[fluid mechanics]] of such a maneuver 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.<ref name=Gudger/>

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 had 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 patients' language.<ref>BWLENGER, G. A. 1898a. Exhibition of specimens, and remarks upon the habits of the siluroid fish, Vandellia cirrhosu. Proc. Zool. Sot. London [1897], p. 90 I.</ref> American biologist Eugene Willis Gudger noted that the area which 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.<ref name=Gudger/>

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 supposedly removed the fish himself, by pushing it forward to disengage the spines, turning it around and removing it head-first.<ref>Le Cointe, Paul. 1922. L'Amazonie Bresilienne: Le Pays; Ses Inhabitants, scs Ressources. Notes et Statistiques jusqu'en 1920. Paris, II: 365.</ref>

However, the veracity of both Le Cointe's<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-09-14 |title=What can the candiru (Vandellia cirrhosa) do? - Hektoen International |url=https://hekint.org/2023/09/14/what-can-the-candiru-vandellia-cirrhosa-do/ |access-date=2024-04-16 |website=hekint.org |language=en-US}}</ref> and Poeppig's accounts are questionable, due to a trend of Europeans from various careers residing in Brazil including scientists, "explorers, medical men, and missionaries" regularly using exaggerated accounts of native people to advance their economic and social status through writing and building rapport with others with similar positions.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Bauer |first=Irmgard L. |date=2013-03-01 |title=Candiru—A Little Fish With Bad Habits: Need Travel Health Professionals Worry? A Review |url=https://doi.org/10.1111/jtm.12005 |journal=Journal of Travel Medicine |publisher=International Society of Travel Medicine |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=119–124 |doi=10.1111/jtm.12005 |pmid=23464720 |issn=1195-1982}}</ref>

Gudger, in 1930, noted there have been several other cases reported wherein the fish was said to have 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 accommodate only the most immature members of the species.<ref name="Gudger">{{cite journal|last= Gudger |first= E.W. |date=January 1930 |title= On the alleged penetration of the human urethra by an Amazonian catfish called candiru with a review of the allied habits of other members of the family pygidiidae |journal= The American Journal of Surgery |volume= 8 |issue= 1 |pages= 170–188 |publisher= Elsevier Inc. |type= Print |issn= 0002-9610|doi= 10.1016/S0002-9610(30)90912-9}}</ref>

===Modern cases===
To date, there is only one documented case of a candiru entering a human urethra, which took place in [[Itacoatiara, Amazonas|Itacoatiara]], [[Brazil]], in 1997.<ref name=Spotte-2002>{{Cite book |last1= Spotte |first1= Stephen |title= Candiru: life and legend of the bloodsucking catfishes |year= 2002 |publisher= Creative Arts Book Co. |location= Berkeley, Calif. |isbn= 0-88739-469-8 }}</ref> In this incident, the victim (a 23-year-old man named Silvio Barbossa, also known as "F.B.C.") claimed a candiru "jumped" from the water into his urethra as he urinated while thigh-deep in a river.<ref name=cecil>{{cite web |url= https://www.straightdope.com/21343429/can-the-candiru-fish-swim-upstream-into-your-urethra-revisited|title=Can the candiru fish swim upstream into your urethra (revisited)? |work=The Straight Dope |date=7 September 2001}}</ref> After traveling to [[Manaus]] on October 28, 1997, the victim underwent a two-hour [[urology|urological]] surgery by Dr. Anoar Samad to remove the fish from his body.{{cn|date=November 2024}}

In 1999, American [[marine biologist]] Stephen Spotte traveled to Brazil to investigate this particular incident in detail. He recounts the events of his investigation in his book ''Candiru: Life and Legend of the Bloodsucking Catfishes''.<ref name=Spotte-2002/> Spotte met Dr. Samad in person and interviewed him at his practice and home. Samad gave him photos, the original VHS tape of the [[cystoscopy]] procedure, and the actual fish's body preserved in [[formalin]] as his donation to the [[National Institute of Amazonian Research]].<ref name=Spotte-2002/>{{rp|217}} Spotte and his colleague Paulo Petry took these materials and examined them at the institute, comparing them with Samad's formal paper. While Spotte did not overtly express any conclusions as to the veracity of the incident, he did remark on several observations that were suspicious about the claims of the patient and/or Samad himself.

* According to Samad, the patient claimed "the fish had darted out of the water, up the urine stream, and into his urethra." While this is the most popularly known legendary trait of the candiru, according to Spotte it has been known conclusively to be a myth for more than a century, as it is impossible because of simple fluid physics.<ref name=Spotte-2002/>{{rp|216}}
* The documentation and specimen provided indicate a fish that was 133.5&nbsp;mm in length and had a head with a diameter of 11.5&nbsp;mm. This would have required significant force to pry the urethra open to this extent. The candiru has no appendages or other apparatus that would have been necessary to accomplish this, and if it were leaping out of the water as the patient claimed, it would not have had sufficient leverage to force its way inside.<ref name=Spotte-2002/>{{rp|218}}
* Samad's paper claims the fish must have been attracted by the urine.{{cn|date=November 2024}} This belief about the fish has been held for centuries, but was discredited in 2001.<ref name="Spotte-etal" /> While this was merely speculation on Samad's part based on the prevailing scientific knowledge at the time, it somewhat erodes the patient's story by eliminating the motivation for the fish to have attacked him in the first place.
* Samad claimed the fish had "chewed" its way through the ventral wall of the urethra into the patient's [[scrotum]]. Spotte notes that the candiru does not possess the right teeth or strong enough dentition to have been capable of this.<ref name=Spotte-2002/>{{rp|214}} Additionally, the fish would most likely have died<ref name=":0" /> before it could have chewed even a somewhat large part of what was needed to reach it.
* Samad claimed he had to snip the candiru's grasping spikes off in order to extract it, yet the specimen provided had all its spikes intact.<ref name=Spotte-2002/>{{rp|218}}
* The cystoscopy video depicts traveling into a tubular space (presumed to be the patient's urethra) containing the fish's carcass and then pulling it out backwards through the urethral opening,<ref name=Spotte-2002/>{{rp|217}} something that would have been almost impossible with the fish's spikes intact.<ref name=Spotte-2002/>{{rp|215}}

When subsequently interviewed, Spotte stated that even if a person were to urinate while "submerged in a stream where candiru live", the odds of that person being attacked by candiru are "(a)bout the same as being struck by lightning while simultaneously being eaten by a shark."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=G03t9cWFRSsC&pg=PA281&dq=%22simultaneously+being+eaten+by+a+shark%22 ''Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures''] (via [[Google Books]]), by Bill Schutt, published by [[Random House]], 2008</ref>