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A small but terrifying new species of leech roams the Amazon basin. Tyrannobdella rex seeks out animal orifices to enter and attach itself inside, in order to suck the victim’s blood. The case of a 9-year-old girl in Peru with a leech in her nasal cavity brought the creature to the attention of doctors and researchers. Three years later, earlier cases have been confirmed and a report has been published in the journal PLoS ONE.
“We named it Tyrannobdella rex because of its enormous teeth,” said researcher Mark Siddall, curator in the division of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
Although its teeth only reach up to 130 microns high — a little more than the width of a human hair — “that’s at least five times as high as that of other leeches,” Siddall said. “And every one of the people who were found with these in the clinical cases had a frontal headache. Their teeth are big, and these things hurt.”
Link -via Unique Daily
(image credit: Anna J. Phillips et al., PLoS ONE)
English Russia has assembled a collection of about 50 photos from a Russian medicinal leech farm, documenting the technology used to raise them by the millions. The reproductive process of hermaphroditic creatures is a bit complex:
As hermaphrodites, leeches have both male and female sex organs… Mating involves the intertwining of bodies where each deposits sperm in the others’ clitellar area… The clitellum secretes a tough gelatinous cocoon which contains nutrients, and it is in this that the eggs are deposited… The cocoon is either buried or attached to a rock, log or leaf and dries to a foamy crust. After several weeks or months, the young emerge as miniature adults. Studies show that the cocoons are capable of surviving the digestive system of a duck.
The photo above shows the cute little newborns emerging from a cocoon. Cootchie-cootcie-coo! The leeches are fed slaughterhouse blood until their distribution to medical clinics, where they may be stored in pretty pink jars.
Links for the photo album and the biology.
Police found a leech at the scene of a robbery in Tasmania eight years ago. They took a sample of the blood the leech had consumed. In 2008, Peter Alec Cannon was arrested on an unrelated drug charge. The DNA from his blood matched the blood from the leech!
Cannon would probably have got away with the crime had he not been charged with drug offences late last year, and asked to give a DNA sample – which matched that from the crime scene.
Detective Inspector Mick Johnston, who was involved in the police investigation from the start, said Cannon’s conviction validated the use of DNA technology.
“It’s a testament to DNA evidence and the legislation that allows us to keep such evidence in relation to unsolved crimes – this is a fantastic result,” he said.
Link -via Boing Boing
(image credit: BBC)
