Characteristics of leeches

Answer 1

Facts about Leeches:

1. Leeches can range in size from 1 cm to over 25 cm long. The largest leech discovered measured 18 inches.

2. Leeches are worms that has suckers on each end.

3. There are 650 known species of leeches.
4. About one fifth of leech species live in the sea, where they feed on fish. Leeches live just about anywhere there is water.
5. The leech has 32 brains - 31 more than a human.
6. The Hirudo leech lays its babies within a cocoon; whereas the Amazon leech carries its babies on its stomach - sometimes as many as 300.
7. Not all leeches are bloodsuckers. Many are predators which eat earthworms, etc. Some feed on decaying plant material while others feed on blood and tissue of other animals.
8. The Amazon leech uses a different method of sucking blood. It inserts a long proboscis into the victim, as opposed to biting.
9. The bite of a leech is painless, due to its own anaesthetic.
10. The Hirudo leech injects an anti-coagulant serum into the victim to prevent the blood clotting.
11. The leech will gorge itself until it has had its fill and then just fall off. The leech will gorge itself up to five times its body weight.
12. The first leech was used in medicine about 1000 B.C., probably in ancient India.
13. In the past, people would stand in the lakes and pools dotted around the country and when the leeches attached to their legs they would put them in baskets and sell them. Today the Hirudo leech is an endangered species.
14. The original surgeons were barbers and they used leeches to cure anything from headaches to gout!
15. The nervous system of the leech is very similar to the human nervous system and is of enormous benefit to researchers in their quest for the answers to human problems.
16. The nearest relatives of leeches are earthworms.
17. Leeches can bite through a hippo's hide!

The most impressive part about leeches are that they help the human body, I think, and also they suck blood out of your body. It is meant sometimes for medical things such as taking bad, dark, or infected blood from the human body. :) PEACE!!
Leeches can suck the blood out of a human body for up to 30 mins. to an hour; removing about 20mL's of blood from the human body!
Sanguivorous leeches can ingest several times their own weight in blood, at one meal!
Leeches were often uses during medical procedures way back when...they are some times used today, to reduce swelling. sometimes eat small vertibrates They also will swell up if they are in the sun to long.
leeches suck animal and human blood they cant be pulled off because of their sucking teeth but can be pryed off

Answer 2

A leech is a blood sucking animals that live in lakes and rivers. They are usually green. When they bite you need to put salt to get them off