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Tiger Leech

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Went to a day trip to Malaysia for macro and was stalked by many leech! Found several on me but luckily, i found them before they took a bite. My friend got several bites though.

Quote from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leech
Leeches are segmented worms that belong to the phylum Annelida and comprise the subclass Hirudinea.[1] Like other oligochaetes, such as earthworms, leeches share a clitellum and are hermaphrodites. Nevertheless, they differ from other oligochaetes in significant ways. For example, leeches do not have bristles and the external segmentation of their bodies does not correspond with the internal segmentation of their organs. Their bodies are much more solid as the spaces in their coelom are dense with connective tissues. They also have two suckers, one at each end.

The majority of leeches live in freshwater environments, while some species can be found in terrestrial[2] and marine environments, as well. Most leeches are hematophagous, as they are predominantly blood suckers that feed on blood from vertebrate and invertebrate animals.[3] Almost 700 species of leeches are currently recognized, of which some 100 are marine, 90 terrestrial and the remainder freshwater taxa.

Leeches, such as the Hirudo medicinalis, have been historically used in medicine to remove blood from patients.[5] The practice of leeching can be traced to ancient India and Greece, and continued well into the 18th and 19th centuries in both Europe and North America. In modern times, the practice of leeching is much rarer and has been replaced by other contemporary uses of leeches, such as the reattachment of body parts and reconstructive and plastic surgeries [6] and, in Germany, treating osteoarthritis.

Leeches are presumed to have evolved from certain Oligochaeta, most of which feed on detritus. However, some species in the Lumbriculidae are predatory and have similar adaptations as found in leeches. As a consequence, the systematics and taxonomy of leeches is in need of review. While leeches form a clade, the remaining oligochaetes are not their sister taxon, but in a diverse paraphyletic group containing some lineages that are closely related to leeches, and others that are far more distant.

There is some dispute as to whether Hirudinea should be a class itself, or a subclass of the Clitellata. The resolution mainly depends on the eventual fate of the oligochaetes, which as noted above, do not form a natural group as traditionally circumscribed. Another possibility would be to include the leeches in the taxon Oligochaeta, which would then be ranked as a class and contain most of the clitellates. The Branchiobdellida are leechlike clitellates that were formerly included in the Hirudinea, but are just really close relatives.
Image size
960x640px 325.83 KB
Make
Canon
Model
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Shutter Speed
1/160 second
Aperture
F/13.0
Focal Length
100 mm
ISO Speed
100
Date Taken
Jan 5, 2014, 2:06:47 PM
Sensor Size
6mm
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Comments11
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X-marblehornets-x's avatar
amazingly beautiful! <3