# Sounds Fishy **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 22, 2000, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216 "2000-05-22T19:04:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![missdavis102](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7feea3/32.png) [@missdavis102](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missdavis102)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2000, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/1 "2000-05-22T19:04:51Z")
Um, minor point maybe, but why would a urniophillic fish (or a pee-phillic piscene, if you prefer) swim into a vagina? As far as I can tell, both males and females pass urine through a urethra. In males, it goes through the penis; in females, it has its own separate smaller opening just forward of the vagina. If you ask me, (and I know you didn’t) this smacks of the UL about the lobster and the toilet. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2000, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/2 "2000-05-22T20:34:03Z")
And of course, Cecil’s column can be found here: [Can the candiru fish swim upstream into your urethra? (19-May-2000)](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000519.html) ---
**Author:** ![warinner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@warinner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warinner)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2000, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/3 "2000-05-22T20:36:06Z")
missdavis102 wrote: > [@](#): > > Um, minor point maybe, but why would a urniophillic fish (or a pee-phillic piscene, if you prefer) swim into a vagina? Maybe because soft tissue is soft tissue to a fish that makes its living ‘in the gill cavities of larger fish, where it subsists by sucking the blood of its host.’ Nitpick: the ‘lobster/mudshrimp’ is a juvenile hoax, not an urban legend. Any port in a storm, Andrew Warinner ---
**Author:** ![mralex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5fc32e/32.png) [@mralex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mralex)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2000, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/4 "2000-05-22T23:27:10Z")
Redmond O"Hanlon, in his book, “In Trouble Again,” journeyed up the Amazon in search of the Yanomami tribesmen. In preparation for his trip, Remond had read of the cadiru fish, and had fashioned some protective underwear for himself. Once he was underway, he asked his guide if the stories about the cadiru were true. His guide said that occasionally when dead bodies were fished out of the river with cadiru fish crammed into every orifice of the corpse, including the urinary tracts. However, it seemed to be the opinion of the guide that the fish made their way in after the person was dead. ---
**Author:** ![Silo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@Silo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silo)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/5 "2000-05-23T03:39:21Z")
I don’t feel that Cecil provided the “straight dope” on the Candiru fish. It was a valient attempt though, but didn’t prove/disprove the matter. As for the OP–Maybe when the fish in question gets in the vicinity of the female urethra (while the bather is submerged and unprotected) it makes a mistake and goes up the wrong hole. Even humans make mistakes and go in the wrong hole! Why doesn’t someone take a trip to the Amazon river with a sports bottle (with a plastic straw attached!) full of warm urine. Invert the bottle and insert the tip of the straw just below the river water’s surface, lightly squeeze. When you’re done check for transparent fish in the bottle (or straw). Cecil, it’s time for a vacation. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/6 "2000-05-23T04:45:09Z")
This sounds like a piss-poor experiment to me. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/7 "2000-05-23T04:57:05Z")
samclem, does that mean that you’re volunteering to perform a better experiment? 🙂 I like Silo’s idea, personally. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/8 "2000-05-23T06:25:24Z")
Actually, Silo’s experiment sounds like the right thing. I have to be in a remote location(need to know basis,only) that week, or I would volunteer. ---
**Author:** ![KP](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a9adbd/32.png) [@KP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KP)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/9 "2000-05-23T09:51:37Z")
I can understand if certain people (secure in the knowledge that they will never swim the Amazon) feel disappointed that the candiru may not live up to its leg-crossing reputation. However, fear not, there are worms (Schistosoma haematobium comes to mind) whice will gladly swim up your urethra and infest your body. If they lack the spiny gill plates of the candiru, they do have compensatory advantages: being able to penetrate through through the skin in many cases; laying eggs in the liver, brain and spinal cord, etc.; causing bladder cancer and even being the leading cause of blindness in much of the world. In Egypt, there are hieroglyph/frescos showing farmers (who relied on the annual flooding of the Nile) wearing large crude condoms as they planted. Schistosomiasis is even prominently mentioned in the Ebers papyrus, and signs of Schistosoma parasites (eggs and antigens) have been found inside mummies of even the ruling class. S. Haematobium is found in 54 countries in Africa and on the Mediterranian, and its cousins (S. mekongi, mansoni, japonica, and intercalatum), while less likely to swim up a urethra, can be found in the Carribean, Africa, South America and the Pacific region. So have heart - there is hope for you yet. I’ve seen brain x-rays of calcified cysts (dead “worms”) in Americans. True, they probably came from travel abroad, but one never knows… Now go curl up in bed and hide. I’m off call in 8 minutes, and you can bet I will! ---
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/10 "2000-05-23T14:49:42Z")
Get a pool, a nice chlorinated pool. ---
**Author:** ![DES](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@DES](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DES)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/11 "2000-05-23T15:31:57Z")
Regarding the article [On the introduction of exotic freshwater fish species to the South Pacific](http://www.spc.org.nc/coastfish/Reports/misc/wp99/candiru.htm) mentioned at the end of the answer - take a closer look at the attributions. I don’t think you’ll find Hugh Dunnit and Hans Kneesun-Boompsadaisy listed in Who’s Who In Science And Engineering. DES ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/12 "2000-05-23T16:48:20Z")
Good catch DES! Cecil says: \<\<_One last thing. Lest you think the candiru is all bad news, one visionary has proposed them, apparently seriously, as a key prong in a “fish-based security system” for the South Pacific_\>\> Was Cecil serious when he said _apparently seriously_? Look at the name/address of the authors: Hugh Dunnit & Hans Kneesun-Boompsadaisy Goliath Consultants Inc, Upper Choirboy, Hampshire And from reading these paragraphs, > [@](#): > > The bottom of the moat should be lined with broken glass so as to cut the feet of any malefactor wishing to swim or wade across and gain entry to the house. The liberation of blood in the water will drive the Piranha in to a feeding frenzy and they will school and attack the criminal as he bleeds in the water. No doubt too the electric eels will join in and incapacitate the villain where he can be readily consumed by the fish in the moat. > > The householders can then inform the police who may wish to recover the bones and teeth for identification purposes. The beauty of this system is that it will relieve pressure on the police force and judicial system as the criminal makes a more beneficial contribution to society as fish food. It’s pretty clear that this must be a joke. ---
**Author:** ![kjsheehan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/2bfe46/32.png) [@kjsheehan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kjsheehan)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/13 "2000-05-23T19:47:52Z")
For those of us who are too logic-impaired to comprehend the foregoing analysis or too scatter-brained to even read it in its entirety, clicking on the link at the bottom of the “fish-based security system” page takes you up one level where we find that the article is one of several on a page titled “Just for fun”. I always suspected that the old saw “Ichthyologists have more fun” was true, but now I am sure it is so. P.S. I suspect that Winkelried et alia may want to consider a lawsuit against the page’s authors based on what I can only pray are the slanderous remarks and diagrams in the Tagger Tagging article. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2000, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sounds-fishy/20216/14 "2000-05-25T22:02:41Z")
kjsheehan said: > [@](#): > > P.S. I suspect that Winkelried et alia may want to consider a lawsuit against the page’s authors based on what I can only pray are the slanderous remarks and diagrams in the Tagger Tagging article. I’m sure they meant fishery administrators, and not unrelated web board administrators. (Took me a while to find that one.)