You might think you know leeches: Go for a swim in the wrong shallow lake, and you’ll emerge covered in sleek black bloodsuckers that have decided you’re their next meal. But inside a leech, ...

The bloodsucking worms might conjure an era of vampiric pseudoscience, but their powerful jaws are inspiring new applications. By Zoey Poll The average patient today, confronted with the prospect of ...

A 437-million-year-old fossil from a deposit in Wisconsin could be the oldest species of leech ever found. By Jack Tamisiea If you look around Waukesha County in Wisconsin today, it can be difficult ...

It's the beginning of the spooky season, which means ghouls, ghosts, and bloodsuckers abound. One of the most famous bloodsuckers in nature is, of course, the leech. These parasites feed on blood and ...

As we tidy away the Dracula capes and glow-in-the-dark plastic fangs for another winter, one notorious blood sucker has had a particularly good year. In Ireland, the leech was driven to extinction in ...

Since the dawn of civilization, leeches have been firmly attached to medicine. Therapeutic bloodsuckers are seen in murals decorating the tombs of 18 th dynasty Egyptian pharaohs. They got their ...