Watch Blood-Sucking Leeches Leap From Leaves and Soar Through the Air
New videos may help settle scientists' long-standing debate over whether leeches can jump
For centuries, observers have told tales of leeches leaping through the air in pursuit of their next meal—with written records of the creatures’ gravity-defying feats dating as far back as the 14th century. Ibn Battuta, a medieval Muslim traveler, described seeing the “flying leech” while visiting what is today Sri Lanka in the 1300s.
“It is found on the trees and weeds near the water and leaps to the person who happens to pass it,” he wrote.
But scientists have remained skeptical, even debating the mechanics of what a “jump” for a leech would really entail. Maybe land-dwelling leeches weren’t technically jumping, but rather, they were falling onto their victims from an overhead perch?
Now, for the first time, researchers have captured the behavior on video. They describe their observations of at least one species of leech jumping in a new paper published Thursday in the journal Biotropica.
Study co-author Mai Fahmy, a conservation biologist at Fordham University and a visiting scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, was in Madagascar in 2017 when she spotted a leech on a leaf. On a whim, she whipped out her phone and began recording. To her surprise, the skinny, wormy creature scrunched up the lower half of its body, then leapt onto the forest floor.
