All Creatures Great and.... UGH!!
0 Comments Published by totallygone.com on Thursday, April 20, 2006.

I like to think of myself as someone who's never surprised and rarely shocked. Today I got taught how utterly wrong I am by a creature that weighs less than a gram and is about the same size (fully retracted) as my middle fingernail. No, you've not guessed it (unless you've had the pleasure yourself) - it was my first encounter with a leech. It and I crossed paths at one of northern Thailand's national parks, a vast area of jungle, geysers and waterfalls, with little bungalows set in the crook of a valley. Idyllic - not the kind of place you'd expect to be assaulted by a monster, even a small one.
Something in the way he moves...
It was quite the most unpleasant creature I've ever met (qualifier - that wasn't human); unpleasant not because of the way it looked - a little brown worm with a neatlittle taper to it - but because of the way it moved. Think of a miniature brown slinky on speed, and you're half-way there. Add a really weird way of flicking and flailing from side to side(vein-hunting)like that nasty robot-bug in the Matrix, and you've got the other half.
The most fascinating aspect of the encounter was my own reaction. Interestingly, had a South East Asian Tiger, or some other massive carnivorous beast crossed our path, I would have been fascinated and enthralled (although much more likely to die). However, the sight of this tiny leech and it's weird wriggling instilled more terror into me than any ferocious feline would have done - for the simple reason that it was so clearly, single-mindedly and aggressively after my blood. No ifs, no buts. There's something vaguely reasonable about a tiger or a lion (in my warped imagination).
They want your blood
Totally focused and wholly unstoppable - with a brain no bigger than the head of a pin, the leech is way, way smart. Oh yessireee. It cruises the areas around lakes, streams, ponds and waterfalls, operating just like a big cat, knowing that in the unbearable, inescapable heat of the jungle, its prey needs nothing more than water. So it hangs from a branch and waits for a meal to pass beneath, then drops when it detects the presence of a warm body.
A sense of flow
Once it's hit flesh, the leech moves quickly to find a spot where it can feed unhindered. Somewhere dark, under the hem of your shorts or pants, beneath a sandal-strap (if, like me, you're stupid enough to go trekking in sandals), even through a sock. A sucker at each end facilitates speed and agility. One of these is the creature's mouth which, once it's found a decent vein, injects it with an anticoagulant to prevent clotting, facilitating a smooth feed. The bite is imperceptible, and this is attributed to anaesthetic attributes of one or more of the 100 proteins that can be found in the leech's saliva. So you're unlikely to know you've been bitten until you've lost a few millilitres of blood. Because the leech has a tiny body mass, by the time you look down, the large blackish worm you'll see dangling from your flesh will, in fact, be made mostly of you.
It's enough to make you stay indoors.
Something in the way he moves...
It was quite the most unpleasant creature I've ever met (qualifier - that wasn't human); unpleasant not because of the way it looked - a little brown worm with a neatlittle taper to it - but because of the way it moved. Think of a miniature brown slinky on speed, and you're half-way there. Add a really weird way of flicking and flailing from side to side(vein-hunting)like that nasty robot-bug in the Matrix, and you've got the other half.

They want your blood
Totally focused and wholly unstoppable - with a brain no bigger than the head of a pin, the leech is way, way smart. Oh yessireee. It cruises the areas around lakes, streams, ponds and waterfalls, operating just like a big cat, knowing that in the unbearable, inescapable heat of the jungle, its prey needs nothing more than water. So it hangs from a branch and waits for a meal to pass beneath, then drops when it detects the presence of a warm body.
A sense of flow
Once it's hit flesh, the leech moves quickly to find a spot where it can feed unhindered. Somewhere dark, under the hem of your shorts or pants, beneath a sandal-strap (if, like me, you're stupid enough to go trekking in sandals), even through a sock. A sucker at each end facilitates speed and agility. One of these is the creature's mouth which, once it's found a decent vein, injects it with an anticoagulant to prevent clotting, facilitating a smooth feed. The bite is imperceptible, and this is attributed to anaesthetic attributes of one or more of the 100 proteins that can be found in the leech's saliva. So you're unlikely to know you've been bitten until you've lost a few millilitres of blood. Because the leech has a tiny body mass, by the time you look down, the large blackish worm you'll see dangling from your flesh will, in fact, be made mostly of you.
It's enough to make you stay indoors.
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