Another reason not to swim in the Amazon river.

The candirú or canero (Vandellia cirrhosa) or toothpick fish is a freshwater fish in the group commonly called the catfish. It is found in the Amazon River and has a reputation among the natives as the most feared fish in its waters, even over the piranha. The species has been known to grow to a size of 6 inches in length and is eel shaped and translucent, making it almost impossible to see in the water. The candiru is a parasite. It swims into the gill cavities of other fish, erects a spine to hold itself in place, and feeds on the blood in the gills, earning it a nickname as the "vampire fish of Brazil".

It is feared by the natives because it is attracted to urine or blood , and if the bather is nude it will swim into an orifice (the anus or vagina, or even the penis—and deep into the urethra). It then erects its spine and begins to feed on the blood and body tissue just as it would from the gills of a fish. The candirú is then almost impossible to remove except through surgery. As the fish locates its host by following the water flow from the gills to its source, urinating while bathing increases the chance of a candiru homing in on a human urethra.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candirú

And if I forget to turn off the spigot because the darn overflow piping seems to be clogged, my downstairs neighbor would probably prefer that river...
:hide:

OUCH!

Redstone

That's what my ex-boyfriend used to call it. I didn't believe it when he told me about it; I thought he was making it up. He forgot the real name of the fish so he didn't look it up. (This was before the days of the internets.) Eventually, he found an article about the actual fish, and sonofabitch, he hadn't been making it up.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://camelot.lfhk.cuni.cz/parazitatlas/atlas.aspx%3Fkod%3D44&h=480&w=640&sz=44&hl=en&start=15&tbnid=hGBY3uUQFjgstM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3DVandellia%2Bcirrhosa%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

pain in. Not to mention a suddenly strong aversion to swimming in ANY river, whether it's in South America or not.

Redstone

on NRP (I forget which show) they were interviewing a swimmer who intended on swimming the length of the Amazon and one thing he mentioned was that he would have to uninate in his wetsuit to avoid this thing swimming up the hole his urine was comming out of.

A fellow I knew who worked for the state department and traveled the world said there is a similar creature that will swim UP a man's urine stream to enter the body.

I bet it can't get me... I mean this hypothetical person with its barbs then.