Julia Bayly | BDN
Well if this isn’t the stuff of nightmares, I don’t know what is!
A newly discovered bloodsucking, olive-green leech with three jaws and as many as 59 teeth has been found about 40 miles outside of downtown Washington.
A team led by a researcher at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History discovered the new species, Macrobdella mimicus, in the swamps of southern Maryland. It’s the first time since 1975 a new leech species has been found in North America.
The leeches are about the size of a cigarette and are very stealthy. They use their tail sucker, which is a muscle to attach, then spread their mouth and bite.
The bites don’t hurt, and once the leech is done sucking — it will drop off. Just like all other leeches however, if you find one attached to your body — let will drop off if you pour salt on them.
Leeches are parasitic worms that feed off of the blood of their hosts. In the 1700 and 1800’s, doctors used them to rid their patients of headaches and fever. The thought process behind this was that they were removing their patients ‘bad blood’.
Although this is quite an amazing discovery…it’s sort of gross and freaky too!
