Little blood suckers

 When people talk about leeches it is usually with a face of disgust. I've heard many girls and grown men shriek with horror when they find a leech stuck to their legs. And there are so many different pieces of advice to get them off - use salt, tea tree oil, scrape if off with a blunt knife, coke cola, cigarette, vinegar, soap, or a beer. Some say this causes the leech to push gut bacteria into the wound before it detaches, so not advisable. I just pull them off.

We went walking on a track overlooking Stanwell Park a while back and there were so many of them that if you stood still for a little while there would be up to ten of them on your shoes within a few minutes.

You can count five of them on my hiking boot here, and I had a few on my legs. You can't feel them latching onto you, and pulling them off causes some bleeding for a while, but it is the itching for weeks afterward that is the most irritating.

Leeches are are actually quite interesting little animals. They are from the family called Ringed Worms (Annelids), the same as Earthworms and Rag worms.

They feed on blood of humans, other mammals, fish, frogs, turtles, birds of small invertebrates. They ingest several times their own weight in blood at one meal after which they retire to digest the meal - which is very slow and allows them to survive for up to months without a meal.

Leeches have been used for medical purposes as far back as 30AD in China for blood-letting, and more recently they have been used to assist in microsurgery, such a plastic or reconstructive surgery. Their saliva has anti-inflammatory compounds and anticoagulants that could prevent tumours from spreading. The anticoagulant is what causes one to bleed for a while after you remove the little sucker.















It is actually quite fascinating to watch them as they do an inchworm crawl and search for a host.

With the wet weather that we've had lately I've had a few around my cottage, and even found one climbing through my skylight on its way to get me!