Leeches

[walkinTas]

CP, if you think that is big then you really should see the leech photo on the wall in Lee's hut. It is huge. Hopefully someone will have a copy somewhere!

[corvus]

That is a decent sized sucker but just remember it got fed from an area with a plentiful blood supply:shock: having said that Leech bites are unpleasant but just a fact of life in Tassie so dont forget the BUSHMAN Deet 80%

They never really bothered me THAT much until I saw one hanging off the bottom of a canoe I'd just flipped in a dam in Victoria- Iit was bigger than my thumb and longer than my index finger. Yeeesh

[tasadam]

CP, if you think that is big then you really should see the leech photo on the wall in Lee's hut. It is huge. Hopefully someone will have a copy somewhere!

Sorry to disappoint, but the hand in that photo you refer to is that of a child. Still a big leech though.
I think I read that info from Gorby somewhere here on the forum.

Here is a leech I found on a recent walk, discovered it when I found a small Orchid I wanted to photograph.

A leech in waiting

And waiting

Now, we have all heard of a Tiger Leech.
First time I thought I had seen one was when I saw those really long black ones.
Having seen this one, I figured this was definitely a tiger leech due to its colour and its tiger-like spots on it.
Haven't seen one since, though a close look at the first leech in this sequence may suggest similar markings, although they are white.
This leech really was a tan brown with yellow strips - I have other photos of it. It is on my pack.

A Tiger Leech at the walls

[Pedro]

Sorry TCP - fairly normal size hands.

The good news is that these leeches were south of Campbell Town, so if you stay in the NW, you should be relatively safe.

Meanwhile here is another pair for you:

[tasadam]

Mary Creek Plains. What a place.
Just don't, okay!

We arrived at a forested area to the north of Mary Creek Plains, and looked for somewhere to camp. Initially we thought we had discovered an absolutely wonderful place.
There were black cockatoos everywhere - conservatively over 70, but probably more likely more than a hundred. I have never seen so many in one place. Soo noisy, too! All I can say now is it's a pity they don't eat leeches.
We dumped our packs in the forest and went searching for any flattish ground.
After realising we had left our packs in about the best area, we returned to them and looked for the best site. Then my wife noticed a leech on her boot.
She said to get the camera, which was pretty brave of her to leave it there for long enough for me to try and get a photo of it.
As I went to get the camera, she said hey, there's another, and another.
When I stopped and turned to see the now 3 leeches on her boot, I noticed the buttongrass beside me, and a good half the spiny leaves on this buttongrass had a leech climbing out toward me.
I immediately instigated a plan of self-preservation.
I got the space blanket out, spread it out, put both packs on that, and had my wife stand on it. This was her "safety zone".
I gave her a tent peg and told her to just keep flicking them off as they came towards her or the gear. SHE HAD A FULL-TIME JOB.
Meanwhile, I had to get the tent up.
It was a rushed job. I came back to the "safety zone" a couple of times so I could have the leeches flicked off me.
Then, once the tent was up, my wife went in, I passed all the gear, piece by piece, carefully inspecting everything.
Then I got in and we sealed the tent. We still ended up with 6 leeches in our tent on the gear, we destroyed them.
We were in the tent looking at the wall of the inner, we could see all the leeches crawling around on the outside of the inner, looking for a way in.
If you flick one, they must bounce off the outer because they landed straight back on the inner not far from where the flick occurred.
Then, as if it couldn't get any worse, we noticed one inside the tent near the door - the blighters had discovered the gap between where the two zippers meet.
Out with the first aid kit and applied deep heat like pasticine to fill in the gaps in the zipper.
There we stayed, all night. Didn't go outside for anything.
We sacrificed a wide mouth water bottle for number 1's and did not need number 2. Those leeches have a clinching effect, I guess. No way was I going out to squat, even if I needed to.

We cooked in our tent - very very carefully. We also had to remain focussed on whether we were fuming ourselves - a risk when cooking in a concealed environment especially a tent.
Next morning, we packed up everything inside our tent. My wife's pack was completely sealed and packed, and all I had to add in mine was the tent and the space blanket, forever after known as the "safety zone".
Then it was out quickly, down with the space blanket, on with the packs and my wife and her trusty tent peg to flick with, while I folded the tent up as quick as I could.
One thing for certain, we were making it to the highway that day regardless - I did NOT want to unpack that tent again because I knew that when I packed it, it got packed complete with leeches.

We got moving, and had a half hour slog uphill through untracked forest to the open plains to the north, and all of the forest was similarly infested with leeches.
When we got home, I left the tent a few days before setting it up - what did I find when I unpacked it?

15 living leeches.

And for the whole sorry sage, I only ended up with one leech, on my butt. Found it fairly quickly and removed with salt.

I am not alone on this, have a read here - members.pcug.org.au/~apurdam/Tassy2003/day5.html New link - http://bushwalkingtreasurebox.blogspot. ... day-5.html

Sorry if my experience gives you nightmares.

[walkinTas]

I have never recovered from the first time Adam told me this story. My skin crawls whenever I see a Black Cockatoo and I am certain I will never go to Mary Creek Plains.

[wobbly]

Sorry if my experience gives you nightmares.

Thanks for the pic of a Tiger Leech. Now I have a name for that horrible fat 3" long thing at Pelion East.

It's enough to make you move to NZ.

[Whos_asking99]

Oh man, Tasadam...that is a great description, I know its cruel, but I couldnt help myself from laughing a few times there, I love how it went from one on a boot to being holed up in a tent from the little suckers. I can only imagine how tourists would react to being told that

Does everyone have trouble with leech bites itching? I know it sounds weird, but the few that i've had, I havent had any trouble with afterwards. (well, apart from leaking blood for a while after)

That's a wonderful story Tasadam- real heart warmer.

Actually, I've had to do the exact same thing in the US with poison ivy- and it never seems to work. And it's a lot worse than leeches, if not as graphic.....

[BarryJ]

...............................................

Does everyone have trouble with leech bites itching? I know it sounds weird, but the few that i've had, I havent had any trouble with afterwards. (well, apart from leaking blood for a while after)

Like you, the only problem I have had is leaking blood and it doesn't seem to matter whether they have detached voluntarily before I have found them or whether I have removed them with a hot match head or Bushman.

[corvus]

If you remove them b4 they bite you dont bleed ,last walk they got under my guard "Bushman" and I now have a couple of scabs (sorry) which when picked bleed like billyo

[Singe]

Doing a little bit of reading on leeches last night (As you do) I came across a few articles advising against removing them with heat, salt or repellent. Seems it causes them to regurgitate their stomach contents into the wound they're feeding from, potentially giving you a nasty infection. Apparently the go is to slide a fingernail across the skin to break the seal between their mouthparts and your skin, repeat for the tail end sucker then flick them off.

[tasadam]

Doing a little bit of reading on leeches last night (As you do) I came across a few articles advising against removing them with heat, salt or repellent. Seems it causes them to regurgitate their stomach contents into the wound they're feeding from, potentially giving you a nasty infection. Apparently the go is to slide a fingernail across the skin to break the seal between their mouthparts and your skin, repeat for the tail end sucker then flick them off.

Can you link the source of that info? Sounds useful, thanks.

[Nick S]

Great story tasadam.
Definitely material for a b grade horror Personally I think ticks incite more revulsion, but maybe i'm desensitised by the number of leeches I've flicked off over the years..
On the same topic, I used to wonder at how leeches fed in the wild until I saw a wombat brush past me with what looked like a mortal bleeding wound on its side! As the animal wandered off I inspected the track and discovered a large bloated leech crawling away from a pool of blood. So there you go.

[johnw]

Apparently the go is to slide a fingernail across the skin to break the seal between their mouthparts and your skin, repeat for the tail end sucker then flick them off.

This is the method I use (more or less).

Can you link the source of that info? Sounds useful, thanks.

Some interesting leech resources below. Everything you wanted to know (or didn't ) about leeches, including removal as Singe described. There's a heap of stuff on the net about them. From what I've read it seems possible that a histamine injected by the leech, in addition to the anti-coagulant "hirudin", may be the cause of itching.

Australian Museum factsheet:
http://www.austmus.gov.au/factSheets/leeches.htm

Another factsheet, from the Wet Tropics Management Authority:
http://www.wettropics.gov.au/st/rainforest_explorer/Resources/Documents/factsheets/Leeches.pdf

List of Australian & NZ Leech Species including 11 or 12 found in Tasmania. Someone else can count the number of species. I found it too overwhelming :
http://www.invertebrate.us/leech/splist.htm

How to remove a leech (one version). And some rather frightening info as well:
http://www.worstcasescenarios.com/scenario.htm?scenarioid=22

[wobbly]

Saw John W's link to a list of Aust and NZ leeches and it reminded me of my favourite leech "fact"

"There has only been one record of a terrestrial leech on mainland New Zealand.
A leech similar in all respects to H. antipodium, except for the position of the
male genital pore, was discovered by R.R. Forster in 1948 under a log in
Caswell Sound, Fiordland, 170 km south-west of the Open Bay Islands."
its quoted from an article at http://www.doc.govt.nz/upload/documents/science-and-technical/Sfc057.pdf

Apparently there are some tiny freshwater ones and some on a few offshore islands but on the whole mainland theres only been one - and it was found hiding under a log miles from anywhere! You'd think Mr Forster could have at least given it a name or taken it on a national tour.

Anyway my son had a huge phobia about leeches ( probably due to me stupidly telling stories about Tassie leeches) so it was great news at the time for our Milford walk.

[bluewombat]

Personally I think ticks incite more revulsion,

My personal tick record was 23 after having an afternoon nap under a bush in the Morton National park in NSW. Took me several days to find them all, lots of itching.
bw

It's actually funny- ticks and leeches are gross, but with me it may be a case of the unknown being worse than it actually is. In the US we had poison sumac, poison ivy, hornets, chiggers (oh man they are awful), ticks and these benighted little gnats called nooseeums that are smaller than the holes in fly wire, and try ot bite you on the eye ball. Yet they didn't bother me as much as the comparatively harmless leech. Well, the disease-carrying ticks were bad.....

[Nuts]

I had my first tick last week. I think i picked it up at Pelion (There are lots of critters around the hut and birds nesting but i dont know what the host was?) It was on my back so i couldn't see it. I grabbed it and the first reaction to something actually grabbing me was to rip the ^%## thing off asap- forget all the fancy methods, the thought made me sick! The wound is still healing (luckily i got the head off as well) and itchy....

[corvus]

Wow !! what sort of Tick ?? I knew we had sheep and cow ticks ,what was this little beggar.

[Nuts]

I'm no expert, my first encounter so I,m still a bit ed... It was a tan colour in the body and not as small as I imagined. Probably around the size of this O in the body.. OK, perhaps not quite, but almost- there's nothing between large and huge font

[MrCAMEL]

D2C_2633-tigerleech1 (Custom).JPG

I saw one of these at the Pelion tent site on New Years Eve. It was trying to get inside my tent. It was the first leech I have seen on a bushwalk as such. I didn't even know it was a leech to start with. Now I know .

[tasadam]

<snip> It was the first leech I have seen on a bushwalk as such.

Crikey, what rock have you been hiding on top of?
Get out there in the mud, the buttongrass etc and experience, man!

Either that or you are just blessed and I am taking you to Mary Creek Plains to see whether or not you really are a good luck charm

[gorby]

the most ticks I have ever seen was on a blue tongue in the garden.
It had a tick between almost every scale.

[Kainas]

May I just be another person to say "eeeewwww" this thread is just plain wrong!!

I have gotten the heebie jeebies now, and am resolved not to bushwalk anywhere other then New Zealand.

[prankphonecall]

I saw hundreds of leeches in the shallows at the Lake Adelaide campground (northern end on the banks), there was a small stream next to the site full of them as well.

But my favourite leech story goes back a few years... Hiking in the gold coast hinterland in Queensland we set out on a beautiful summers day only to be hit by an unexpected hail storm about 11km into a 20km hike, so not only were we being pelted by marble sized hail, but the leeches came out in their thousands... the result:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3465/3268593219_6642c19f80.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3501/3268592763_ff79660584.jpg?v=0

I won't post the actual pic for those with weak stomachs... but i look back with such fond memories of that day! After the storm passed we had the best day, watching the fog clear from a lookout to reveal a spectacular view, oh and the girlish screams of my friends (some of whom ran the remaining 9km screaming all the way) stil ring in my ears.

And I'm still asking myself- WHY DID I CLICK ON THAT LINK????????

[Andy]

I was a little confused at the explanation of how to remove leeches with your tumbnail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMMNRuRmcJ4

This is explained it to me though. This guy had a biggen!

[Steve73]

Hi Guys,

My wife and I will be hiking the Overland Track in early winter. In all seriousness, are there likely to be leeches on the track at that time of the year? Or is it too cold for them? I hate the *&%$#! things!