Leeches: Unique and Colorful Sucking Creatures
Have you seen a leech personally? Or have you already experienced being sucked by a leech?
Leeches are annelids and there are fresh water, terrestrial, and marine leeches. Leeches are hermaphrodites and not all leeches feed on blood as commonly known.
Chainstrap Leech
This spotted leech scientifically named Phytobdella catenifera of Malaysia is a large terrestrial leech that can grow up to 5cm long. It was named after the striking chain-striped pattern on the creature’s back. This leech is rarely seen because it is only attracted to reptiles and is of no threat to humans.
China Leech
Striped leech….well, this leech looks gorgeous for its unique stripe pattern. Being suck by a leech is considered by many people a horrible experience because this creature is so hard to remove from the flesh.
Horse Leech
This creature is slimy and sticky but…it is of importance to humans. This species is a Medicinal Leech. The most common medicinal leech is the Hirudo medicinalis, the European Medical Leech. Other medicinal leeches include Hirudo orientalis, Hirudo verbena, Hirudo troctina, Hirudinaria manilenesis or Asian Medical Leech and Macrobdella decora or North American Medical Leech.
Swallowing Leech (Erpobdella octoculata)
This leech has a very unusual name – “Swallowing Leech”. We are all aware that leeches suck but this one doesn’t really have jaws, it just swallows its prey whole. It grows about 5 or 6 cm in length and it feeds on midge larvae, worms and snails.
Sidney Leech
Sidney Leech is a true leech. True leeches (Euhirudinea) are an infraclass of the Hirudinea.
True leeches are subdivided into two groups; the first group is called proboscisless leeches and the second group is called jawless leeches.
Giant Americobdella Leech
This brightly colored leech commonly called the Giant Americobdella Leech is from Chile. It preys on earthworms and swallows them in whole.
Kinabalu Giant Red Leech
The bright orange-red Kinabalu Giant Red Leech is endemic to Mount Kinabalu in Borneo. This large species of leech grows up to 30 cm long. It feeds only on worms and lives in damp earth and leaves in cracks between the rocks and can be found in Kinabalu Park at an altitude of 2,500-3,000 meters.
A Pet Leech
Yes, unbelievable it seems but some people consider leech as pet.
More photos…
A Red Leech
A Rainforest Leech
A Banded Leech
Hope you enjoyed this. Thank you!
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22 Responses to “Leeches: Unique and Colorful Sucking Creatures”
On July 19, 2009 at 6:32 am
Very interesting.
On July 19, 2009 at 9:15 am
a very nice article about leeches.
On July 19, 2009 at 9:45 am
Quite fascinating. That picture with the leech sucking a man’s arm is disturbing. Can’t believe people have them as pets.
On July 19, 2009 at 11:01 am
Great detailed article about leeches. Your work was well done!
On July 19, 2009 at 11:53 am
I hate Leeches,but this write up is too good…
On July 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm
ew!
On July 19, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Nice write but YUK!
On July 19, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Nobert,
You did a great job of writing this! Fantastic is more the word!!! I have not ever had the experience of leeches, but I know a few people that have. They do say they are very hard to get off. Keep up the excellent work buddy!!! Glad to see you back!
Randy
On July 19, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Great article, Norbert. Well presented. But I hope I don’t run across any of these leeches.
On July 19, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Long ago it was common practice to use leeches for blood letting. I’m glad I wasn’t born then. Yuk!
On July 20, 2009 at 1:50 am
Amazing articles,but nasty creatures.Lol.
On July 20, 2009 at 6:13 am
Very informative article. Keep up the good work.
On July 20, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Nice work!
On July 22, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Very good piece!
On July 22, 2009 at 6:04 pm
A weird but interesting creature. Well written.
On July 22, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Uhh!
On July 24, 2009 at 10:58 am
Eayoow leech! We used to catch them for Biology. Nice post friend
On July 31, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I have heard people say they have had leeches on them but I have never seen them. They are horrible things but nature didn’t make any mistakes so they must be good for something.
On July 31, 2009 at 2:41 pm
I remembered after I posted my comment about reading that leeches are still used on purtrified flesh. Doctors bandage them on the wound and they eat the rot away and leave clean flesh. So they are put to good use.
On August 9, 2009 at 12:53 pm
yucky, no matter how colorful they are.
On August 13, 2009 at 11:11 pm
yaiks….
great post.
On November 5, 2009 at 6:34 am
i think this article is fantastic. leeches can be very useful and are still applied in modern micro surgery especially where the reattachment of fingers are being performed. As to the strangeness of keeping leeches as pets, i think although its unusual it is quite rewarding.
the picture of the medicinal leech is actually one of my very own ones. it was taken on a bench at my college where i study animal management by one of the learning resources staff. The leech was feeding off of a fellow student. they only require to feedings a year and are extremly low maintenance. in an odd way im quite sentimental about them.
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