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will 
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Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1830 |
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 Topic: big leechesPosted: 12 Jul 2009 at 10:24am |
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Can anyone ID these leeches for me please ? seen in the Lake District a few weeks ago, indulging in a feeding / mating frenzy actually outside the water on the muddy bank of the pond. About 12cm long when extended, around 6cm normally. I'm thinking probably horse leech, but never seen ones quite so big and so well marked. Cheers, Will
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dave fixx
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Posted: 12 Jul 2009 at 10:27am |
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I can offer no help sorry Will but they look like those graboid things from the film Tremors to me.
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Dave Williams
davewilliamsphotography.co.uk |
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Chris Monk
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Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 282 |
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Posted: 12 Jul 2009 at 12:07pm |
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I'm no expert on leeches but they look like horse leeches. Some of the ponds near here have very high populations and doing a torchlight survey for newts you just find large numbers of leeches swimming across the water at the surface.
Only the other week we were discussing finding horse leeches in the evening out in wet grass near ponds and streams obviously moving some distance from the water. |
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Derbyshire Amphibian & Reptile Group www.derbyshirearg.co.uk |
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will
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Posted: 12 Jul 2009 at 1:11pm |
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Cheers Guys; I'll go for graboid horse leeches !
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Suzi
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Posted: 12 Jul 2009 at 1:27pm |
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Considering we spent so much time in the summer swimming in Lake Windermere as kids I only saw one leech and that attached to a friend's leg. It was the size of these mentioned here. I think I've mentioned here before though how they would get in amongst our minnows which we stored in a large biscuit tin full of small holes in the lake for us to return to the next day to fish with. Sometimes the minnows (all of them) had been sucked empty by leeches. Grim. In my tiny East Devon pond I have them, but I don't know how many. The first one I saw swim across the pond and recently when scooping duckweed out and putting it on the pond edge one immediately freed itself of the weed and shot back into the pond. I was amazed at how quickly it got back in. It was a smaller leech than those here. |
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Suz
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AGILIS
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Posted: 12 Jul 2009 at 2:28pm |
 I think leeches are now protected suckers and you aint allowed to stub your fags out on them if they get you otherwise you will be commiting two offences cruelty to leeches and smoking in public  
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LOCAL ICYNICAL CELTIC ECO WARRIOR AND FAILED DRUID
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-LAF
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Posted: 12 Jul 2009 at 2:55pm |
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Horse leeches. Harmless little critters that simply swallow
soft bodied prey whole. Not blood suckers. They LOVE earthworms... |
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Lee Fairclough
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-LAF
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Posted: 12 Jul 2009 at 3:00pm |
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It's worth noting that if a leech attaches itself to you in
this country it's the medicinal leech, Hirudo medicinalis, which is now very rare in the UK, is a BAP list species and is well worth submitting a recording for to the county recorders. Only a few populations are known to be left but there may well be many others that were previously unknown. |
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Lee Fairclough
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will
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Posted: 12 Jul 2009 at 5:03pm |
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Cheers Lee
I never knew they could get so big - pity the poor tadpoles which were in the pond ! Am I right that a species of leech similar in size to the medicinal leech has been found in the Lake District ? seem to remember reading this somewhere. |
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Chris Monk
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Posted: 17 Jul 2009 at 10:11pm |
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Can Leeches Fly ?
That's the topic on Jeremy Biggs (Director of Research at Pond Conservation) Garden Pond Blog, with his posting today (17 July) about how two horse leeches have suddenly turned up in his newly created wildlife pond. Contacting an expert, he confirms what Lee says above that they love earthworms and leave the water to hunt for them. Read about it on http://thegardenpondblog.org.uk/ |
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Derbyshire Amphibian & Reptile Group www.derbyshirearg.co.uk |
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