Candiru
cwilcox | February 13, 2009Happy Valentine's Day! Though, I doubt this post fits well into your lovely romantic images of the day...
I promised another vertebrate, so here it is, a parasite so cruel it's sure to make you cringe: The Candiru.
It looks innocent enough. It's a little catfish. Heck, it's so little it's known as the "toothpick fish", and yet it's more feared in the Amazon River than the fierce Piranha.
To understand why, you have to understand what this parasitic catfish does. It's intended hosts are other fish. When it finds a host, it burrows its head in to its gills and eats the blood, tissues, or mucus…