![]() Leeches can go up to a year without eating, and blood meals can take months to digest. It can suck two to five times its body weight in blood because of pockets that expand in its digestive system. It uses a triangular set of three teeth to cut in, and secretes a suite of chemicals. The leech uses its teeth to bite and siphon blood from its prey - usually frogs, fish and tadpoles, along with the occasional human, Phillips said. Editors Note: The video of leeches used in surgery is a bit bloody especially after the 2-minute mark. "Ticks and mosquitoes are way more scary than leeches," she said, adding that in her 15 years of studying leeches, she has been bitten many times. After a leech finishes, "it will just itch a little." The encounter doesn't hurt - "nothing like a bee sting," she said - and she uses a fingernail to lift them off. "They use their tail sucker, which is a muscle, to attach and then spread their mouth out and bite." Indeed, when a leech attaches itself to her, Phillips "gets pretty excited," she said. Leeches bite only when they're hungry, she said. She was unfazed when a leech would grab on to her leg. ![]() Phillips said she spent hours with ticks, flies, mosquitoes and chiggers around her, walking in squishy, mucky water while trying to find leeches in ponds. In contrast to juveniles, which lack a uniform color and instead have a noncontinuous palette and patchy. The researchers' findings of the new species, which is about the size of a cigarette, were published this month in the Journal of Parasitology. The giant Amazon leech is the world’s largest leech, reaching a length of up to 18 inches That’s one-and-a-half feet long This enormous Amazon leech is reported to reach incredible sizes and spread out to a width of 3.9 inches. She waded in murky waters for days wearing shorts - with bare legs and sandals - looking for leeches under wood, grass and trash in swampy, algae-covered ponds near Nanjemoy, a small community southwest of Waldorf. It's the first time since 1975 a new leech species has been found in North America.Īnna Phillips, the museum's curator of parasitic worms, led the team that made the discovery. ![]() They have sharp teeth which are used to cut into the skin of the host animal. Photo / Anna Phillips, SmithsonianĪ newly discovered bloodsucking, olive-green leech with three jaws and as many as 59 teeth has been found about 40 miles outside of downtown Washington.Ī team led by a researcher at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History discovered the new species, Macrobdella mimicus, in the swamps of southern Maryland's Charles County. does the presence of leeches in your lake mean that your lake is polluted. Anna Phillips, the curator of parasitic worms at the Smithsonian, holds a newly discovered leech. ![]()
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