#Leech mouth skin#
When a juicy mammals is passing through the trail, the leeches, which are eagerly waiting with their bodies stretched forward, jump on the animal’s body, cut their skin with their sharp mouth parts, and start to drink their delicious blood. They can see the prey with a series of small eyes, feel them with mechanoreceptors and smell the carbon dioxide that they exhale while breathing.Ī thirsty tiger leech in Taiwan. They detect their prey by a combination of visual, mechanical and chemical cues. The food of the tiger leech consists mainly of the blood of mammals that happen to walk across its path. The posterior end has a large sucker, which sometimes has a green color too, and the tiger leech use it to remain attached to the substrate, usually vegetation.
Its dorsum has a series of black, yellow and brown longitudinal stripes and bands which often acquire a green tinge toward the anterior end. A tiger leech preparing to attack a passing mammal, most likely the human taking its photo, which in this case would be Kristof Zyskowski.*įor a leech, the tiger leech is very beautiful. However, different from most leeches, which are aquatic, the tiger leech and many of its close relative live on land or, in the case of the tiger leech, most often on vegetation in Southeast Asia. Its genus name, Haemadipsa, even means “blood thirst”. I never had the opportunity to visit Borneo, but people say that, when you walk inside the rainforest there, it is impossible not to meet today’s “adorable” fellow, the so-called tiger leech, Haemadipsa picta.Īs you may know, many leeches feed on blood, and the tiger leech is no exception.
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