It always amuses me how scared of leeches people are. Whenever someone
new goes collecting with me the first question I get is "Is there
leeches?". That allergy that was described earlier does not sound
pleasant, but other than that there isn't much to fear that I know
of..
At the end of my eight grade year a bunch of us went on a school
sponsored camping/fishing/swimming trip. A group of us decided to try
fishing under this bridge below a dam. We didnt end up catching the
trout we wanted for dinner, but we did get some lampreys! There were
tons of them there, their passage blocked by the dam. Anyway, I had
never seen one before, and the first one I grabbed wrapped around my
arm and latched on! I thought I was under attack by a giant leach :-)
Jim
On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 18:24:50 +0000, Wallace Bilingham
<wally_pike-in-hotmail.com> wrote:
> James,
>
> I watched a show on the Discovery Health Channel a few weeks ago about
> leeches and medical uses of them. They showed a place in England that breeds
> them by the 1,000s for use in hospitals and the like. The show said they are
> need fed for 6 months before being shipped, that way they are good and
> hungy. I was impressed by the 6 month fast, and how they can be used in
> medicine.
>
> Then the show swtiched over to maggots in medicine and I was really
> impressed, but is was hard to eat lunch while watching 1,000s of maggots
> eating away-in-the dead tissue in an infected wound.
>
> Wally
>
> >From: James Smith <jbosmith-in-gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
> >To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
> >Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- leaches
> >Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 09:18:51 -0500
> >
> >Leaches are a pretty rare thing to get in streams in Vermont. I've
> >honestly never seen them in anything but semi-stagnant water such as
> >ponds and swamps. There was one pond where I used to live in Randolph
> >that was only about a half acre in size and was fed by a stream. The
> >pond had a lot of of HUGE (6" or more extended) leaches every few
> >inches along the edge and in the mud. I never saw any in the stream
> >that fed it, however. I always assumed the water was too cold or fast
> >moving for them.
> >
> >Are these leaches people are describing round? Quarter sized but a few
> >eights of an inch thick confused me. All of the leaches I've ever seen
> >have looked like underwater earthworms...
> >
> >A quick little story.. last summer I collected some snails from the
> >river here. When I got home a leach fell off from one of them. I didnt
> >have any fish big enough to eat this leach so I stuck it in a mason
> >jar with some water from the collection bucket. Somehow a small pond
> >snail got in there with it. Within a couple of days I left for 2 weeks
> >and forgot about them. When I got home both the snail and the leach
> >were alive and healthy looking. Now the snail I'm sure found some
> >algae to eat, but the leach amazed me! The cover was tightly on this
> >jar the whole time and there was no air space. I don't know how they
> >made it, but I was so impressed that they went back to the river with
> >me the next time.
> >
> >Jim
> >
> >
> >On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 08:04:41 -0600, dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
> ><dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu> wrote:
> > > What distinguishes "predation" from "parasitism"? Many consider it a
> >semantic rather than real distinction. Most species of leeches (note
> >spelling) are opportunistic, and will attack a wide range of prey species.
> >Some of those that feed mainly on snails and other small invertebrates do
> >consume more than body fluids, and cause death in their prey because there
> >is a smaller size difference than between the leech and vertebrate prey.
> > >
> > > Leeches, like other small invertebrates, can make good fish food (and
> >large bodied species are used for bait in some locales), but few of them
> >will scavenge, and then only sporadically. Maintaining a culture requires
> >live food for the leeches. For some species, oligochaetes (earthworms)
> >make a good food source, but then why not just feed the earthworms to the
> >fish?
> > >
> > > Without more definitive information as to the particular leech involved,
> >and whether it is a specialized feeder, I would hesitate to put it into a
> >tank with fish. I can mention that most of the smaller leeches seem not to
> >cause much harm to fish -- I've seen very healthy appearing sunfish,
> >catfish, carp, suckers, actually a rather wide range of species, with
> >numerous small, wormlike leeches on their fin membranes. But in a tank
> >situation ??????
> > >
> > > I have been fed on by numerous leeches in my tenure as a field biologist
> >and general visitor to streams. Surprisingly to many people, cool, clear,
> >spring fed streams (and springs themselves) harbor numerous leeches.
> >Whenever people who frequent creeks tell me they have never had leeches, or
> >had them rarely, I am surprised. The leech that was described, size of a
> >quarter, disk shaped, is actually a pretty large leech for most streams
> >I've visited, but I have seen such. Both my wife and I seem to be allergic
> >(not uncommon) to the salivary proteins of leeches, and we experience
> >considerable inflamation and swelling if we have an undetected leech of any
> >size. On two occasions for myself, and one for my wife, this has proved
> >temporarily debilitating as the foot and ankle swelled to more than double
> >normal size and was extremely painful, making walking nearly impossible.
> >For those who wear boots, long pants, sneakers, actually any footgear,
> >there is a real need to check reg!
> > ul!
> > > arly for
> > >
> > > For more on leeches, and for help in identifying them-in-least-in-the
> >family level (species in some families are more specialized in their
> >feeding than others) take a look-in-the Covich book on classification and
> >ecology of invertebrates. To identify them specifically requires mounting
> >the teeth on a microscope slide and comparing details of tooth shape. I've
> >never seen a field guide that gives more than cursory information.
> > >
> > > David L. McNeely, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
> > > Langston University; P.O. Box 1500
> > > Langston, OK 73050; email: dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
> > > telephone: (405) 466-6025; fax: 405) 466-3307
> > > home page http://www.lunet.edu/mcneely
> > >
> > > "Where are we going?" "I don't know, are we there yet?"
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: EELReprah-in-aol.com
> > > Date: Tuesday, January 4, 2005 9:40 pm
> > > Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- leaches
> > >
> > > >
> > > > In a message dated 1/4/05 7:54:51 PM, Moontanman-in-aol.com writes:
> > > >
> > > > << Does anyone know how to tell predatory leaches from parasitic
> > > > ones? >>
> > > >
> > > > I thought all leeches were predatory until I looked on the
> > > > Internet and found
> > > > these:
> > > >
> > > > http://www.austmus.gov.au/factsheets/leeches.htm
> > > > or
> > > > http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/entfacts/misc/ef013.htm
> > > >
> > > > I guess in some sense all are predatory, just with different
> > > > targets. My most
> > > > recent encounter was last July in Uruguay with a leech attaching
> > > > to my waders.
> > > >
> > > > Lee Harper
> > > > Media, PA USA
> > > > /------------------------------------------------------------------
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