WALKER, Minn. — Minnesota's third-largest lake has a namesake only an angler could love: the leech. Earthworm's ugly aquatic cousin. Those slimy, crawly creatures straight out of a horror film. But ...

The oldest leech ever discovered has turned out to be a shape shifter of expectations, preserving a body plan that looks ...

Leeches are generally considered the stuff of nightmares. They lurk in warm, slow moving water. They drink blood. And now, scientists have recently confirmed that at least some of them know how to ...

A common worry among visitors to lakes, ponds and rivers emerges every summer - are there leeches lurking below the surface? In 2024, radio station Kiss 91.5 FM posted an article on its website ...

Copenhagen Zoo and University of Copenhagen have in collaboration developed a new and revolutionary, yet simple and cheap, method for tracking mammals in the rainforests of Southeast Asia. They ...

Lying on a bed in a small room in a residential area of Vienna, I endeavour to suppress my squeals as three fat leeches crawl across my knee, and feast on my blood. I'm trying hard to put out of my ...

Ken Grewe plunges his hand into the bottom of a small, black plastic bag - as if he were searching for remaining treats in a sack of candy. What Grewe is seeking is anything but sweet. Like he has for ...

Welcome to your worst nightmare. You’ve lost your balance and fell into a pool of slimy parasitic animals that eat only one thing. Your blood. What would happen if you were at the bottom of this pool ...

A 430-million-year-old fossil reveals that the first leeches were ocean predators, not bloodsuckers. The discovery radically shifts the timeline of leech evolution by more than 200 million years.

Generally, we at Short Wave are open-minded to the creepies and the crawlies, but even we must admit that leeches are already the stuff of... We hate to tell you this, but there are leeches that can ...