Giant Leech Swallowing a Worm Whole

(Video Link)

Are you hungry? You sure will be after watching the preparation and consumption of this filling meal! The BBC program Wonders of the Monsoon showed a Giant Red Leech swallowing a blue worm longer than itself.

That's right: the filmmakers estimate that the leech was 50 cm and the worm 70 cm long. The leech started at one end and started sucking down the worm like it was a thick strand of spaghetti.

This incident took place at Mount Kinabalu on the island of Borneo. The filmmakers had to wait for weeks for the rains to get heavy enough to draw the reclusive leeches out into the open. But as you can see, the wait was worth the reward. Yummy!

-via TYWKWIDBI

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50cm leeches? 70cm worms?
cancelling my trip to borneo.....

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Notice how the frog blinks and retracts his eyeballs into his head when he finally gulps the caterpillar? He does that to help him shove the food down his throat. I'm glad humans don't have to do that when we swallow.

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I've heard of parasites that get into ants or snails and make them climb to the tip of grass blades or plants, which gets them eaten by birds or other predators which incubate the offspring of the parasites in their bodies and then excrete them where ants or snails will then get infected. They call them Zombie Parasites I think. In fact, I may have learned of this right here at Neatorama.

This behavior looks exactly like that to me, but if a parasite can 'sense' a predator from inside the host I am at the same time impressed and really really scared.

Any Neato-Biologists or Neato-Zoologists care to comment on this?

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