Hi all,
Two weeks ago was our yearly night monitoring at a vernal pool and we found something very unexpected. First, there were many more leeches active than normal. Second, we found four leeches "hitch-hiking" on dragonfly larvae and a predaceous diving beetle. The latter initally just had one leech on it, but in the next half hour a second one latched on.
I've uploaded pictures of this to the photos section with the same title as this message subject. The pictures could be better, but this was flash photography at night.
I'm at a loss to explain this. A local naturalist showed the pictures during a state-wide Odonata conference and there was deep silence from all the participants - none of them had ever seen this before.
It's a very large vernal pool and even with the drought there is still 2-3 feet of water in the pool, so it's not a case of the leeches wanting to find another pool.
I've been running a 5-8 month vernal pool survey for 9 years and i've never seen this before. Have any of you? Ever heard of it before? Any help or comments would be most welcome!
Eileen
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