Re: NANFA-L-- leaches

Wallace Bilingham (wally_pike-in-hotmail.com)
Wed, 05 Jan 2005 18:24:50 +0000

James,

I watched a show on the Discovery Health Channel a few weeks ago about
leeches and medical uses of them. They showed a place in England that breeds
them by the 1,000s for use in hospitals and the like. The show said they are
need fed for 6 months before being shipped, that way they are good and
hungy. I was impressed by the 6 month fast, and how they can be used in
medicine.

Then the show swtiched over to maggots in medicine and I was really
impressed, but is was hard to eat lunch while watching 1,000s of maggots
eating away-in-the dead tissue in an infected wound.

Wally

>From: James Smith <jbosmith-in-gmail.com>
>Reply-To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
>To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
>Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- leaches
>Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 09:18:51 -0500
>
>Leaches are a pretty rare thing to get in streams in Vermont. I've
>honestly never seen them in anything but semi-stagnant water such as
>ponds and swamps. There was one pond where I used to live in Randolph
>that was only about a half acre in size and was fed by a stream. The
>pond had a lot of of HUGE (6" or more extended) leaches every few
>inches along the edge and in the mud. I never saw any in the stream
>that fed it, however. I always assumed the water was too cold or fast
>moving for them.
>
>Are these leaches people are describing round? Quarter sized but a few
>eights of an inch thick confused me. All of the leaches I've ever seen
>have looked like underwater earthworms...
>
>A quick little story.. last summer I collected some snails from the
>river here. When I got home a leach fell off from one of them. I didnt
>have any fish big enough to eat this leach so I stuck it in a mason
>jar with some water from the collection bucket. Somehow a small pond
>snail got in there with it. Within a couple of days I left for 2 weeks
>and forgot about them. When I got home both the snail and the leach
>were alive and healthy looking. Now the snail I'm sure found some
>algae to eat, but the leach amazed me! The cover was tightly on this
>jar the whole time and there was no air space. I don't know how they
>made it, but I was so impressed that they went back to the river with
>me the next time.
>
>Jim
>
>
>On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 08:04:41 -0600, dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
><dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu> wrote:
> > What distinguishes "predation" from "parasitism"? Many consider it a
>semantic rather than real distinction. Most species of leeches (note
>spelling) are opportunistic, and will attack a wide range of prey species.
>Some of those that feed mainly on snails and other small invertebrates do
>consume more than body fluids, and cause death in their prey because there
>is a smaller size difference than between the leech and vertebrate prey.
> >
> > Leeches, like other small invertebrates, can make good fish food (and
>large bodied species are used for bait in some locales), but few of them
>will scavenge, and then only sporadically. Maintaining a culture requires
>live food for the leeches. For some species, oligochaetes (earthworms)
>make a good food source, but then why not just feed the earthworms to the
>fish?
> >
> > Without more definitive information as to the particular leech involved,
>and whether it is a specialized feeder, I would hesitate to put it into a
>tank with fish. I can mention that most of the smaller leeches seem not to
>cause much harm to fish -- I've seen very healthy appearing sunfish,
>catfish, carp, suckers, actually a rather wide range of species, with
>numerous small, wormlike leeches on their fin membranes. But in a tank
>situation ??????
> >
> > I have been fed on by numerous leeches in my tenure as a field biologist
>and general visitor to streams. Surprisingly to many people, cool, clear,
>spring fed streams (and springs themselves) harbor numerous leeches.
>Whenever people who frequent creeks tell me they have never had leeches, or
>had them rarely, I am surprised. The leech that was described, size of a
>quarter, disk shaped, is actually a pretty large leech for most streams
>I've visited, but I have seen such. Both my wife and I seem to be allergic
>(not uncommon) to the salivary proteins of leeches, and we experience
>considerable inflamation and swelling if we have an undetected leech of any
>size. On two occasions for myself, and one for my wife, this has proved
>temporarily debilitating as the foot and ankle swelled to more than double
>normal size and was extremely painful, making walking nearly impossible.
>For those who wear boots, long pants, sneakers, actually any footgear,
>there is a real need to check reg!
> ul!
> > arly for
> >
> > For more on leeches, and for help in identifying them-in-least-in-the
>family level (species in some families are more specialized in their
>feeding than others) take a look-in-the Covich book on classification and
>ecology of invertebrates. To identify them specifically requires mounting
>the teeth on a microscope slide and comparing details of tooth shape. I've
>never seen a field guide that gives more than cursory information.
> >
> > David L. McNeely, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
> > Langston University; P.O. Box 1500
> > Langston, OK 73050; email: dlmcneely-in-lunet.edu
> > telephone: (405) 466-6025; fax: 405) 466-3307
> > home page http://www.lunet.edu/mcneely
> >
> > "Where are we going?" "I don't know, are we there yet?"
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: EELReprah-in-aol.com
> > Date: Tuesday, January 4, 2005 9:40 pm
> > Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- leaches
> >
> > >
> > > In a message dated 1/4/05 7:54:51 PM, Moontanman-in-aol.com writes:
> > >
> > > << Does anyone know how to tell predatory leaches from parasitic
> > > ones? >>
> > >
> > > I thought all leeches were predatory until I looked on the
> > > Internet and found
> > > these:
> > >
> > > http://www.austmus.gov.au/factsheets/leeches.htm
> > > or
> > > http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/entfacts/misc/ef013.htm
> > >
> > > I guess in some sense all are predatory, just with different
> > > targets. My most
> > > recent encounter was last July in Uruguay with a leech attaching
> > > to my waders.
> > >
> > > Lee Harper
> > > Media, PA USA
> > > /------------------------------------------------------------------
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