An enormous-toothed leech, pulled from the nose of a girl who was bathing in a river, has just been documented in the journal PLoS ONE.

Named Tyrannobdella rex, which means "tyrant leech king," the new species of blood sucker sports its "ferociously large teeth" in a single jaw, but is less than 2 inches in length.

Found at remote parts of the Upper Amazon in Peru, the new species has led to a revising of the leech family that feeds from the body orifices of mammals.

"Because of our analysis of morphology and DNA, we think that Tyrannobdella rex is most closely related to another leech that gets into the mouths of livestock in Mexico," said Anna Phillips, a graduate student affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History and the first author of the paper. "We think the leech could feed on aquatic mammals, from their noses and mouths for example, where they could stay for weeks at a time."

The find adds to the some 700 known species of leeches worldwide. Since they exist far and wide, it's thought that these organisms had a common ancestor that lived on Pangea, the huge prehistoric land mass that broke up and eventually led to today's continents.

"We named it Tyrannobdella rex because of its enormous teeth," explained Mark Siddall, who also worked on the study and is a curator in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History.

Siddall added, "Besides, the earliest species in this family of these leeches no-doubt shared an environment with dinosaurs about 200 million years ago when some ancestor of our T. rex may have been up that other T. rex's nose."

"The new T. rex joins four other species that use this abbreviated name, including two Miocene fossils (a snail and a scarab beetle), a living Malaysian formicid ant, and, of course, the infamous Cretaceous theropod dinosaur that was described in 1905 by an earlier curator of the American Museum of Natural History."

OK the word leech is in the title of this thread. Why am I even here?

Is that pic of Genesia playing Mrs. Beaver???

johnart said:

Genesia said:

Oh please woman. Go write in in your diary.
I hope you're playing a beaver more convincingly than victim.
[Edited 4/16/10 7:58am]

johnart said:

Hello John

johnart said:

This thread is brilliant!

Genesia said:

do not listen to him dear. he is secretly wondering how his dental photos leaked...

XxAxX said:

Now, that's funny!

http://www.ecanadanow.com...irls-nose/

The discovery a new species of leeches in Peru has scientists baffled.

The new species is called Tyrannobdella, but is being dubbed the “T-rex” due to the unusually large set of teeth that it has. The teeth are approximately five times larger than usual in comparison to other species of leeches. The blood sucking parasite was found inside the nostril of a young girl and is believed to have come from a lake or river.

This is not the first time that the existence of the Tyrannobdella has been noted. They were first noted in 1997, but were only named upon this latest encounter with the animal. They are believed to latch themselves to any orifice of aquatic animal life.

Leeches can very greatly in appearance, from being shaped like a cartoon drawing of a tear drop to being colorful and segmented like an earthworm. Most, but not all, leeches bite. Through a naturally produced anesthetic, their initial bite may go unnoticed. The longest recorded leech measured 18 inches in length. It has been noted that leeches are capable of carrying disease from their hosts. Leeches have been discovered carrying diseases such as hepatitus as well as the HIV virus.

XxAxX said:

Now, that's funny!

Genesia said:

If only possibly by coincidence, because I had root canal yesterday...touche XxanAxx.

Sit down Genesia.

That's why I am always putting my fingers up my nose and checking for leeches

I'm going to vomit.

I spent every year of my childhood swimming in one Minnesota lake or another, and remember the horror of getting out and seeing a gross leech clamped somewhere onto my body (or worse even, having my mom suddently say "Hold still a second" and grabbing the salt and coming towards me, and realizing what that meant). HATE those disgusting, slimy things!

Anybody remember the scene from Stand By Me when those boys get out of the river or swimming hole or whatever it was, and they were all covered in leeches? That scene gave me the freakouts for days afterwards.

RubyButterfly said:

once when we were little kids, dad took us for a week at lake vermillion, up north. we rented a boat and went motoring around the lake, stopping here and there. one such stop included a beach where there were what looked like big thick strands of dark grass just waving around on the bottom. it turned out, it wasn't grass. it was beds of leeches. i kid you not, my little brother pulled one up and it stretched out to about six inches long.... i wouldn't go swimming after that.....