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An externally attached leech will detach and fall off on its own accord when it is satiated on blood, which may take from twenty minutes to a few hours; bleeding from the wound may continue for some time. [49] Internal attachments, such as inside the nose, are more likely to require medical intervention. [50]
The leeches attach themselves on the mouth, neck, cloaca, and the undersides of the flippers of turtles. [3] Once there, they use the same technique for blood extraction as other sanguivorous leeches: opening of a small wound, usage of an anticoagulant to prevent blood clotting, and ingestion of the blood.
Leeches are hermaphrodites, and mating may take place on or off the fish host, but in either case, the cocoon, usually containing a single egg, is deposited elsewhere, usually stuck to a stone or piece of vegetation, or even to the carapace of a crustacean. When the egg hatches, the juvenile leech has about a week to find a suitable fish host ...
Like other leeches, H. verbana has anterior and posterior suckers that allow it to attach to a range of substrates in both air and water. It can even attach to porous, air-permeable substrates. In the wild, this ability may be relevant for attaching to porous rocks or the furry skin of host animals.
Haemadipsa picta (common names: tiger leech, or less commonly, stinging land leech) is a large (up to 33 mm long) terrestrial leech found in Borneo, Indochina, and Taiwan. [1] [2] It was described by John Percy Moore based on specimens collected from Sarawak, Borneo. [3] It preys primarily on medium- to large-sized mammals, including humans. [2]
Leeches like the one attached to Hall have multiple rows of tiny teeth which they use to securely attach themselves to skin and drink blood. It can be painful and dangerous to simply yank leeches ...
They use a combination of mucus and suction (caused by concentric muscles in those six segments) to stay attached and secrete an anti-clotting enzyme, hirudin, into the host's blood stream. The medicinal leech (Hirudo medicinalis) has two suckers, one at each end, called the anterior and posterior sucker.
Pontobdella muricata is a long, cylindrical, somewhat flattened leech, narrowing at both ends. It has a number of annulations, which do not correspond to its internal segmentation, and is one of the largest sea leeches, with a length up to 10 cm (4 in) long when at rest, and double that length when stretched. [2]