PlanetCatfish.com

Info:
1.It's attracted to urine,
2.It goes into people's bodies,
3.Lives in S.A., and
4.Spreads out its spiny little fins(inside people. )

What is it called? I was always wondering what it is called?
If it's a catfish can I have its Common/Latin name?

You are thinking of a candiru.

Is it rare?
What's its Latin Name??

Just look in the cat e-log under the name candiru...

I wonder why the heck its attracted to urine?
DOes it really have spiny fins?

The spines are on the gillcovers, not fins.

the urine is a mix-up by the fish; it makes a mistake.....
the whole trick is this; it's a bloodsucking parasite that prefers to live on the gills of truly big fish.

Now the gills are actually an enormous surface area a fish uses to exchange gasses and other stuff; oxygen goes in, carbondioxide goes out. And....a fair bit of ureum is also excreted through the gill-area....

A fish has only a very simple "kidney-like" organ; a lot of the functions a kidney has is done by the gills.

Any Vandellia (or similar critter) smelling ureum and following that smell, is expecting a bloody meal on someone's gills, not to get stuck and die in a mammals' urethra; wich makes no sense to the species whatsoever.
Just a quite nasty mistake, actually.

I thiught it followed the nitrogen released by fishes and then use their spines to actually cut the gills ofthe fish and then leave very well fed.
I actually saw video of this happening to a Pirahna and its kind of odd.

Eduardo

I thought it followed the nitrogen released by fishes

thats exactly what sid said, (ammonia is a nitrogen compound).

and then use their spines to actually cut the gills ofthe fish and then leave very well fed.

AFAIK the spines are for support not cutting, wile they suck the blood out. Can anyone else be more specific about this?

I concur, the spines are for support. The best description I have actually comes from an SAS (British Marines) survival guide, and even goes so far as to detail a removal process, regrettably I shan't share it in mixed company. If you want to know that bad, go for a swim . . . maybe Shane has some scary stories . . .

Ammonia indeed is a nitrogen compound, so is ureum.

the spines are definitely for "hanging on"; they "wedge" themselves into a gill-opening, and then they're fairly stuck.
the spines on the gills are actually pads of very tiny thornlike structures; all pointing backwards, a bit like sandpaper and a bit like sharkskin.
but not so spiny that the fish cannot get loose, it sticks to place by a mechanism very much like velcro!
and Trichomycterids can "widen" their heads, regardless of their own breathing/gill movements., I've seen this with non-parasitic species that anchoured themselves in dense bushes, woodpieces and such.

The problem with them getting stuck into an urethra, is that they die quickly due to lack of oxygen and ureum-poisoning, once dead they're unable to "make their heads slimmer" for obvious reasons.....

So it's not like a harpoon or the stinger of some animals; once in, never out. They can control their "stickability"!


never thought I'd mangle so much English in one post

Sorry for the confusion, but thats how the tranlation of the vided explained it.

Sidguppy thanks your explanation, it cleared things up for me.

Eduardo

Actually, studies done to date have not shown that candiru are attracted to urine. I have kept them (a couple of different scale eating spp) and never figured out what made them react. Movement seems to be the main thing they react to. As far as them actually swimming into humans. I fall in the camp that says hogwash. There are no documented cases that I find credible. The only so called "documented" case claims that the man was urinating from the bank and that the fish swam up the urine stream! Anyone think that a fish could do that? I have asked native peoples all over South America about candiru and always get the same reaction, which is lots of laughter and comments about how stupid gringos are if they believe something like that. Most of the old South American explorer's books that contain candiru tales also cover Amazon women tribes, 20 foot tall Indians, and lots of other silliness and claim it all to be true.
-Shane