May 31, 2023 • 52 mins
Leeches leeches leeches leeches! How big can they get? Can we really use them in medicine? And are they secretly... cuuuute?
Guest: Joey Clift
Footnotes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15XDOP0Auky-Ot2LdYBj0T6td_xGXm7wmyDrQy21nQWg/edit?usp=sharing
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Many Parasites, Katie Golden, and today I want to
talk to you about one of the world's most notorious parasites. Leeches.
These little suckers love our blood, but they're far more
devious and suck far more than you might think. Discover
(00:28):
this more as we answer the age old question is
leech is the best medicine? Joining me today is friend
of the show Garfield, appreciator, comedian, TV writer and enrolled
Keal's Indian tribal member, as well as the creator of
the digital series Gone Native, Joey Clift.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Welcome. Yeah, everybody, thanks so much for having me. I'm
always excited to come back and talk about things that suck.
That's leeches. That's what they do.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
That's what they do, suck and it's funny because suck.
I mean two things at the same time. Joey, when
I have you on, we usually talk about cats because
we are both big fans of cats. We're both big
fans of Garfield. So this is a little bit of
a pivot. We're pivoting to leeches. Now are you Are
(01:19):
you on board with the rebrand?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah? I mean, I feel like I'm like a notorious
cat guy, but I guess I'm okay with shifting to
being a notorious leech guy. I feel like that. I
feel like that's now that I'm getting older, now that
I'm getting to medicine.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, getting more refined. I mean, if you think about it, right,
like leeches are the cats of the insect world. They
just kind of suck off of our lifeblood. And you
know that's about it, right, Cats just kind of live
off of us. They take our food, they take our resources,
(01:54):
and don't really give anything in your turn except for
being adorable, just like a leech.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah. And I think that if you think about it,
like Garfield is for sure a leech. I mean he's
basically sucking the life of John Arbuckle. Like also in
this world, John our buckles blood is lasagna.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, I didn't really think about that metaphor much past
the initial thought his veins.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Are full of ricotta. Yeah. I mean, you know, so
leeches look love them or hate them, they exist and
they're everywhere, and personally I like them. Maybe I don't
want a bunch of them on me at once, but
you know, they're really fascinating. Actually, uh, what are your
things on leeches?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Wait? Well, wait question. Okay, you said you didn't want
a bunch of them on you. What is the max
amount of leeches that you'd want on you.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Let's see. I'm gonna say two, one on each leg,
and then any more than that, I think I'd start
to get a little bit unnerved, you know what I mean,
Like cause, like, once it's three leeches, it's like, all right, guys,
what am I a buffet? But if it's two leeches,
then it's sort of just a friendly gathering. It's like
(03:03):
a date. It's like a little leech dinner date, and
that's not so bad. But yeah, I don't want to
be a leech buffet.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That makes sense. And you're asking what my opinion on
leeches is. Into that, I'm gonna say, let's see if
I can sing this the Jack Black Mario Brothers song
leeches leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches. I'm fine
with you. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Nice, very good. I have not seen that movie, despite
I think it being free on Twitter. I've heard you can, so, yeah,
leeches are really really interesting. There are many species of leeches.
And a lot of leeches that we're familiar with have
these three jaws that look like a grappling hook to
(03:53):
puncture your skin, such as the North American medicinal leech.
And we'll talk about why it's called that later, but yeah,
it has three jaws and around fifty to sixty tiny
teeth or denticles on each jaw, and they use these
jaws to saw into your skin and make a wound
through which to suck your blood. So you know, they're
(04:16):
like tiny doctors or vampires. Tiny vampire doctors who surgically
cut open your skin so they can eat your blood.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I mean, I do base my value of like how
good my doctor is based on how many teeth they have. Yeah, no,
so far leeches are great doctors.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Our teeth better doctor. My doctor just has teeth like
coming out of his nose, and you know that's good.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Oh, I'd let that doctor do whatever surgery on you
thought was a good idea.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So their saliva famously contains a potent anticoagulant that can
cause you to bleed for over twelve hours. Now, this
sounds very dangerous, but you know, if if it's just
one leech incision, right, it's you're probably not going to
lose too much of your blood. Now, if it's you know,
(05:08):
a bunch of leeches, that could start to be a problem.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, I mean I feel like a leech, like is
could one leech suck all of the blood from your body?
Or like how much blood can one leech hold?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So it kind of depends on the species of leech.
One leech could definitely not suck all the blood from
your body. We actually have, we have a good amount
of blood, probably gallons. I actually don't know how much
the total blood a human being.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Here with five cups something like that.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I think more than five cups. I'm not a serial killer,
so I have not memorized how much blood.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's at least like a mountain dew two later bottle.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It's yeah, at least so no one leech cannot suck
you dry. They can suck a lot of blood, like
they can, you know, increase in sol eyes massively and
absorb a huge amount of blood. But I would say it,
I mean, it depends on the species. Some are small
(06:08):
and will only be able to suck so much blood,
and some are larger and can get a good amount
of blood in them.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, can a leech suck all of your blood? No?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
I know that's not true for like a you know,
average size like North American medical leech. They can consume
around ten milli liters after a feeding, which is a
lot for the leech. That's like ten times its own weight.
But you know, for a human, that's totally manageable as
(06:45):
long as it's like one leech.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I wonder, is any I mean, okay, so I'm answering
this question knowing the answer already of like, have there
ever been so many leeches on somebody that the leeches
have sucked all of their blood out? And then I've
just kind of realized, Oh, of course people use leeches
for medicinal purposes. One percent people.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Died from them, probably from medical malpractice back in the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I think that there have been rare cases of leeches
causing death due to severe anemia. But I think these
were actually ingested not external leeches.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I really want to know the context of why somebody
ate alive leech.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Well, it was not. These were called pharyngeal leeches, so
they were ingested on accident in contaminated drinking water. So yeah,
so I think that they actually attach inside of the throat,
and yeah, because you don't know they're there, and it
just kind of causes a severe anemia on accident. They're
(07:59):
usually ectopair sites. But that's that seems much more likely
than being killed by leeches on your body, because you're
gonna probably notice them and be able to pull them
off before that happens.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So okay, So I have a question about leeches. Uh,
if a leech was as cute as a cat, or
if a cat required drinking your blood, would you have
a would you like, would you give a cat just
like a little bit of your blood over day? I
probably would.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, Oh I absolutely would. Honestly, you put a little
bow on a leech and I'd probably let it, you know,
eib on me. That's all right, I'm not Yeah, I
drink guy. Yeah, I used to be sort of squeamish
about getting my blood drawn. But I think if it
was done by a leech and the leech like was
(08:55):
like thank you, you know, and really cute and had
big little puppy dog eyes, absolutely i'd let it check
my blood.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, if it leached me out at me, like if
after a leech like and it took a mix sip
of my blood. It looked me in the eyes and
went like no, I'd be like, you could have as
much as you want.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I would just assume probably at that point I had
lost so much blood that I'm hallucinating, but I'd still
be on board.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Most species of leeches are aquatic. That's how people accidentally
ingest them in the water. That's how you get them,
like after you like wade through water or swim and
then you come out and like, hey, I've got a
leech on me. Whoops. They typically live in fresh water
environments and some live in marine environments. But there are
actually a few species of leeches that are terrestrial and
(09:44):
they live in moist forest floors. Uh. And terrestrial leeches
have a really interesting trick for when the weather gets
too dry, they will burrow underground to avoid total water loss,
and they're out of skin, will dry out, and they're
kind of like they're also covered in mucus, so that's
helps them as well. And they can remain like this
(10:06):
for months and then you just add a little bit
of water and then they will regain their moisture and
be back to normal. They'll reanimate. They're kind of like
those you know those like little like what are they
like sponge dinosaurs and you put them in water and
they can get really big. I feel like that. I
have never seen those toys since I was like tin
(10:26):
But uh, there used to be a toy where it's
like you get this like like a little capsule or
something and you'd put it in water and suddenly absorb
all the water.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
And that sounds like me when I'm just like binge
watching a very long TV show where it's like, oh,
I just kind of stop moving. My body gets covered
in like a mucus like substance, and then at a
certain point I cover myself in water and then I'm.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Like I'm back, I'm moisturized and I'm thriving. Yeah, that's
me playing Legend of Zelda. I uh fun, It's it's
very fun. I don't recommend it if you're interested in
staying hydrated and taking potty breaks as needed, because you know,
I will sit there and kind of shrivel up like
(11:12):
a leech and just be like, but Link needs to
save Princess Zelda. Did you know that Zelda's the name
of the princess? And you know it's it's a problem.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, that's like something about like I feel like I
have to be careful with how much I play video
games because I used to just be like a huge gamer,
and like now I'm at the point where like, if
I get really into a game, I'll like start it
in the morning and then I'll like blink and it's
three in the morning, and just like I haven't eaten
any food or drinking water, where am I?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know? Leeches are just like us in this way.
They will sort of chill out, dry out, become little
raisins until water is poured on them and they rehydrate.
There are actually over six hundred and eighty speeches of leeches,
and not all of them are black and shiny or brown.
(12:05):
You know. Some are actually bright orange, some are red
or yellow, Some are multi colored with stripes or speckles.
Some can even be blue or green. The tiger leech
of Borneo has bright orange and yellow stripes. It looks
like the garfield of leeches. Joey, look at this beautiful leech.
(12:25):
Can you say you would not let this leech, you know,
suck a little bit of your blood?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Okay, yes, without question. My question about this leech is
do we know what his opinions about Mondays are.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Unlike Garfield, he's actually not a fan of Tuesdays. Why
I know, right, He's.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Completely different from everything I know. So, the the reason
that leeches are different colors. I know that sometimes with
like snakes, colors will show you, like you know, sometimes
colors are for camouflage purposes. Sometimes it's like show you
that they're venomous or not. Is there a reason that
leeches are different colors? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
I mean, you know, some of it can be camouflaged,
some of it could be a warning coloration. Some of
it could be potentially for mating, like mating coloration. There's
all sorts of you know, these different mechanisms are any
of them like.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
To distinguish flavors, Like if I eat the orange one,
does you taste like an orange? Or eat the black one?
Does you taste like licorice?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
This one is? This orange one is actually hot cheetohs flavored.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So yeah, that's a delicious leech. I mean, like this
is this is why people die eating leeches. As I
look at that and I'm like, oh, it tastes like
hot cheetohs. I'll pop a couple of leeches.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, that's how they get you. So, marine leeches are
often really tiny. They're actually not that well understood or
well researched. Some of them are actually quite pretty though.
These are like black and white or orange and white striped.
These ones look like little creamsicle flavored ones. Think they're
actually kind of pretty.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah. I would. I would definitely eat a creamstickle flavored leech. Yeah.
Also question about Okay, so this photo that we're looking at,
it's a couple of leeches that are attached to something
that I initially thought was like somebody's like beltline, like
right above their jeans. Is that a fish? What are these?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
It is a fish. It's a fish. It is leeching
a fish. It's sucking the blood out of a fish.
So yeah, I'm sure fishes don't really like them, but
I think they're pretty. But yeah, they're tiny. Uh, and
so they can kind of like hang out on a
fish without the fish really noticing. And the method by
(14:40):
which leeches suck blood differs. So some leeches, like the
medical sorry, the North American medicinal leech that I described,
has that those three jaws that work like a sort
of surgical grappling hook.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, it's like like it's like a grabber thing.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, like a grabber thing. But some leeches have sharp
like you said, you.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Said, surgical grappling hook, and then I said, yeah, like
a grabber guy.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Like a little grabby guy. But you know, other leeches
have sharp proboscises that they used to poke a hole
in their host and suck up blood. It's sort of
like a straw, like a sharp straw. Leeches also common
a variety of sizes. The smallest leeches are around half
an inch or one centimeter long, and the largest species
(15:27):
is the giant amazon leech. It is I would say
upsettingly large. It can be nearly eighteen inches long or
forty five centimeters and four inches wide or ten centimeters.
It uses the proboscis method of puncturing its host and
slurps you up like a shake. I think I would
(15:47):
hit my limit with this leech. Like if I found
this leech on me, I think I'm just gonna go
till night night time. I'm gonna pass out for a
minute so I don't have to face reality that there's
this giant leech on my leg.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, looking at this, you have a photo of this
leech for us. It's so big that it's wrapped basically
fully around a person's leg. It looks terrible. It looks
like a snake, except a snake that exclusively drinks your blood.
But a big question what if it fit me out,
if it me out and was covered with fur, would
you be okay with you?
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I mean, how big are its eyes in this scenario?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Are it's big and they's just real real big and cute?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, okay, I'm letting it suck my blood in that circumstance.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But this one take like, take it all, take it all.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
This one is not fluffy, its size are not big
and cute. Uh, and it is actually a rare sighting.
They were once thought to be extinct, so of course
researchers brought them back to UC Berkeley to start breeding them.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
So my question there is, I feel like somebody's reaction
to oh, they're probably extinct was good, yeah, yeah, and
then some jerk was just like, no, we must save them.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
We must save them. I mean, yeah, jokes aside. It
makes sense, right, because animals that, even like gross animals,
can have a lot of interesting things about them that
either teaches the teaches us about the environment, like the
local ecology can even have like medicinal uses. We'll talk
about that later, but like the leech could have some
(17:28):
interesting compound, right, and it's saliva that only this leech
species have that could help us better understand medicine or
it could you know, help us understand how something like this.
Why why is this leech extremely big compared to other leeches.
So there is a lot of information. Also, once you
start naming the leeches, I feel like you can kind
(17:50):
of convince yourself they're cute. So they named the progenitor
speech Grandma Moses after the artist. Yeah, it was after
this folk artist who, as everyone remembers, Grandma Motives, Grandma Moses,
the folk artist who was a giant leech. She these
(18:13):
beautiful sort of Americana folk art and yes she was
also yes, yes, but yeah, Grandma Moses. The leech had
over seven hundred and fifty offspring, So wow, how does
she do it? How does she have a full time
career as a folk artist and have over seven hundred
and fifty offspring? That, ladies, is what I call leaning in.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah that I say, yeah, yes, queen boss, yeah, spech queen,
that's real girl boss entered. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Actually the most species most species of leeches are hermaphrodite.
So girl boss boy boss them boss.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah they yeah, I stand uh binary leech wuaene king yeah,
whatever the term is for r Latin binary beach royalty.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I think we got it.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah yeah, yeah, So like I feel like I just
kind of I just realized for sure. The scientist that
decided to read these leeches is a Spider Man villain. Right.
He bears a leech costume. He exclusively drinks stuff through
a straw. There's a giant leech in his room that
he talks to.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
One hundred percent, right, I'm shocked that there's not a
more prominent supervillain who's leech themed. I'm gonna look up
leech super villain. I know there's like the Tick, which
feels so, but the Tick is a hero leech character.
There's just a character named the Leech found in Marvel,
and I guess he's like a mutant, but he's looks
(19:50):
like a cute little guy. I don't know. It's it's
interesting that we don't have like leech Man, who's just
kind of a big leech with maybe arms, just like
a big leech with arms and you call him leech Man,
and he has a tragic backstory as like a dentist
or something. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, the Marvel character Leech was created by Chris Claremont
and John Remita junior. And my note to them after
looking at a picture of this character is do.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Better research leeches more, because this is not a leech.
This is just a weird little doctor.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Guy with guy with green skin and three fingers.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
He's a cute little guy. I mean not to say
leeches aren't cute, but this is not. I want leech
representation in super villains or hear.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, it is important for leeches to be able to
see themselves in the media.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yes, So, Joey, what if I told you that leeches
don't always suck blood, or don't always just suck blood.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
I would say my entire world has been shook a
shook out. Oh god, oh god, oh god god. Yeah,
I don't know that. Tell me more.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, some species of leeches are not merely parasites. They
are active carnivores and predators. So I want to talk
about the horse leech. It's sadly that would be impressive.
It's sadly not like a little leech with horse legs
that winnies, but it is a fat leech. It grows
(21:32):
around six inches to around six inches or fifteen centimeters long.
They are found all over Europe and in parts of Asia,
and they like to hunt prey, and their prey is
one of the most adorable little guys in the world,
baby toads. So oh yeah, baby toads are called toadlets,
(21:56):
and they are adorable. Unfortunately for them, horse leeches find
them bite sized and delicious. So uh. The thing about
horse leeches is they don't actually suck human blood, but
they do sneak up on baby toadlets and quickly engulf them,
swallowing them whole and alive. And it's just kind of
(22:22):
sad to watch because you see this little baby toad
with its head sticking out of a leech with an
expression of oh God, why why me? I hate mondays
and this leech is just sucking it down.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Okay, now I'm googling horse leech eats toad to see
what comes up. Is there a photo of this? Oh God,
this is so depressing. Yeah, yeah, this reminds me a
lot of I think the horse leeches was probably the
design that was usually as the inspiration for leeches in
the Resident Evil series, like the couple of Residubles. They
(23:01):
were like leeches. They would have like one tooth and
they would jump up on you and then like hook
their tooth on your leg and it was always very annoying. Bleat.
They give you the bleeding status effect, which was the worst.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
I hate it when leeches give me the bleeding status effect. Well,
these leeches give these toadlets the eaten whole status effect.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, the dead status effect.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That you are getting digested inside this leech. They can
even grab onto the toelet with their butt end, either
end can grab and then they just sort of feed
themselves the toelet from their butt into their mouth, so
kind of a humiliating end for the totlet. I feel
like it's not very digulously.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So these their butt is like like an elephant's.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Trunk, yeah yeah, or yeah, like a like a fork,
but yeah, I guess you're right, more like an elephant's
trunk to put it into their mouth.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
So yeah, that sounds that's deeply unsanitary.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
It's well, you know what I feel like, when you're
a leech, you don't concern yourself with such things, right,
such as being sanitary or your war crimes against toadlets.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah. Like, if I could use my butt as like
a grabber in which to eat things, I just wouldn't.
I just would not do that.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
M Yeah, I mean, you know, I feel like it
would be quite a different society if we could grab
things with our butts. It maybe it would be better.
Maybe we'd have your wars because we would be more
humble given that we grab stuff with our butts.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, you are describing a perfect utopia.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
So some leachh Some leeches actually specialize in eating worms.
Kinnabalu giant red leeches of Borneo are such an example.
As its name implies, it's pretty big. It grows to
be around twenty inches or fifty centimeters long. This leech
(25:05):
will start feeling up a worm and looking for the
end of the worm as you do. You know, you
find a worm, you gotta find it's one of its ends.
And then once it's Once it finds the end of
the worm, it starts to suck up the worm like
a giant spaghetti. Despite the fact that the leech is
(25:26):
not that much bigger than the worm itself, so it
looks like a fat spaghetti eating a fat spaghetti, and
it's very slimy.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, it seems deeply humiliating. I'm looking at a picture
of a borneo red leach eating a worm right now.
It seems like it would probably be deeply embarrassing if
you were a worm that was eaten by another worm,
but also like not a worm that's like, yeah, you're right,
it's like pretty much the same size as you. Like.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
As I have frequently stated on this show, the world
is just tubes or complicated tubes, or tubes and tubes.
So this is just a case of a tube eating
another tube, and I think that's just about how you
can sum up nature.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah, look, it's tubes all the way down.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
It really is. I mean, we're tubes, but we have
a lot of extra parts, right, Like, yeah we are,
but we are when when you get down to it,
we're just tubes and then we eat tubes, right, spaghetti,
even if you're a vegetarian, right like you eat you
eat tubes. I feel like a carrot is kind of
a tube, right, It's got tube like vascular structures inside
(26:36):
the carrot. Other animals are tubes no matter what you do,
we're just tubes in tubes in tubes.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Well you should. You should put that on either a
t shirt or a poster, like a motivational poster. I
feel like I would sell a trillion copies and start
a new religion.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
I'm gonna start tattooing it. I'm going to start a
tattoo shop. But the only thing that I tattoo is
we're all tubes and tubes and tubes.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah, yeah, like all.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So there's another group of leeches called the Glossophonidae family
who are flat and oval shaped. They're kind of an
interesting leech because they're not just your regular sort of squat,
fat or tube shaped leech. They they're the pancakes of
the leech world. They live in fresh water bodies bodies
(27:31):
of fresh water. Some species feed on crocodilians, so they
attach themselves onto crocodilians and suck their blood, which is
pretty metal props to them. Some feed on turtles and
will actually spend most of their life attached to the turtle,
like the turtle is a little floating island. They may
(27:53):
sometimes be found on the turtle shell, but they don't actually,
they can't suck anything through the turtle shell, so they're
just kind of hanging out there. They're just chilling there,
and when they need to feed, they will attach themselves
to the turtle's flesh, intentionally going for a part of
the turtle's body where the turtle has a hard time
scratching it off, which just sounds so obnoxious for the turtle.
(28:16):
You've got your little turtle shell home, so you've got
a squatter living on your turtle shell and then kind
of going to your nether regions where you can't scratch
it off, and then sucking your blood. Rude, bad house.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That also feels like, I mean, I feel like that's
a lot of coverage area for a turtle. I feel
like turtles aren't really known for flexibility or like being
able to use things off. So it feels like there's
like ninety percent of the turtle it probably is not
going to be able to get you off of it
if you're there.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
That's a very good point. Have you ever seen a
turtle doing yoga? I haven't.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
I have not, and I feel like that answers a
lot of questions you now that I think about it.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
So, but some members of the gloss Phona Day family
prey on fresh water snails, so they will use their
proboscis that's the leech implement. That's like a pokey straw,
and they will just suck the snail's fluids right out.
They'll completely like they kill the snail. This is not parasitism.
This is predatory behavior. It's like eating escargo with a straw.
(29:20):
So you know, they're very French.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Hoow classy. Yeah, I'm watching video of this and this
is horrible.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
If you ever wanted to feel sorry for a snail,
this is a good opportunity.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
But you know, and the leeches like kind of clear,
so you could like see you could like see it
like eating the Yeah, you can.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
See the juice is traveling through it. It's fun. It's
like it's like a fun fun straw, crazy straw that's
see through and you can see it going right in there. Terrified,
but so you don't. These leeches, the Glossiphoniday family leeches,
they are actually quite loving parents. They exhibit extraordinary parental care.
(30:09):
They will carry their offspring in a membranous pouch on
their bellies like a kangaroo, until their offspring are large
enough to survive on their own. Another adorable fact is
that once their offspring emerged from the pouch, they will
often attach themselves to the parents and suck their parents dry.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
It's so cute, osa, oh got it. They were like
me when I still live with my mom at like
twenty two.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
All these a lot of parents listening. You're like, mm hmm, yep,
that's my Yeah. Yeah, who doesn't want a parent smoothie
though when you think about it, right, like just kind
of stick a straw and mima or pop pop and
suck all their blood.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, just shake them up and go.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
I love my parents. I'm not I'm not gonna, you know,
I don't know, like eat my parents. I feel like
I have to say that when after I've stated that, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Mean my parents are both like very skinny, so I
feel like they're probably mostly crystle. Also my parents and
will not eat them.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
We're both we're both stating for the record, we're not
gonna be cannibals and eat our parents.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Yeah. So when they get eaten, un well, yeah, don't
look at us run the record saying a what we
didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
It wasn't gonna be us air tighter. Yeah, So Joey,
I promise to talk about leeches as medicine. Are you
excited to learn about blood litting?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I am, yes, very I'm very excited to hear about this.
Very I'm sure hip new medical practice that is sweeter
than it.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So, as you probably already know, leeches used to be
used in blood letting under the dubious science of humors.
So this was a practice, you know, hundreds of years ago,
and the idea was that the body was comprised of
four humors, blood, yellow bile, black bile, and flim. Of
(32:17):
course we do have blood, bile and phlim in our bodies,
but humorism ascribed questionable properties to these fluids and had
unscientific ideas of how these humors had to be balanced.
So blood was thought to be the main source of
energy of the soul and the body, and having a
(32:40):
sanguine nature meant to be energized social and enthusiastics. So
you got more blood, you're more charismatic, you're more of
a social butterfly. If you have less blood, I guess
you're more introverted, and you play more Legend of Zelda
instead of going out.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
That makes sense to me. So you basically to make
some many more extroverted you just to pump more blood
into their body.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Yeah, you put more blood in there. But yeah, so
everything has to be in balance according to humorism. So
if you had too much blood, you could get diseases,
and by letting out some of the blood, you'd put
your humors back into balance again. One theory as to
an origin of bloodletting is that the Egyptians mistook the
(33:27):
reddish pink fluid on hippos, which is actually a natural
secretion that acts as a sun protector. But they thought
that this fluid was blood. It's not. It's just like
a skin secretion. It's this pinkish red. It helps me
attack them.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
It's like homemade sunscreen for hippos.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Exactly exactly. But they thought that the hippo would actually
scratch itself to let out blood and soothe itself this way,
or heal itself, and so they thought this was practice
that they should perhaps copy. Blood litting was either done
by simply cutting into the patient or victim or with leeches.
(34:07):
So leeches were so popular in this medical practice that
early nineteenth century France imported over forty million leeches per year.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Cross.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah, so unfortunately, there's no scientific basis to blood litting.
We need our blood to be alive, and there's no
such thing as humor balance, and diseases aren't really caused
by too much blood. You can certainly have problems with
the concentration of certain cells or certain compounds in your blood.
(34:43):
So you can have too high of a concentration of
red blood cells in your blood or blood and fluids
building up too much in certain parts of the body.
But there's not really a thing. It's like it just
got too much blood in general, and it's causing bad
vibes within the body.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I really want to hear that from a doctor's just
like like yeah, you know, like like everything looks good,
but like I'm really sorry to tell you this. You
just have too much blood. You it was just so much.
You just like we just lose like a cup or
two of blood.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
You'll be good, right again, You could have you could
have some kind of issue with your blood, right, like
a balance of like hey, there's too much not enough
blood cells, too much blood cells, not enough plasma, too much.
You know, I'm not a doctor to be to be
very honest with you, and so you know, don't trust
(35:34):
me with your blood. However, Yeah, as far as I
understand it, there there's no disease that is just like
you got too much blood son.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, but I have a question about Okay, some medicinal leeches,
Like I know that like blood letting and leeches were
kind of used as just sort of like a medical
catch all for a long time where it was just
that was just kind of like the default like you know,
take a salt tablet and walk around the track once
or twice kind of solution. But is there are there
any sort of like medicinal qualities or benefits to leeches,
(36:10):
Like is there is there ever a situation where it
actually would make sense to use leeches to like lessen something.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yes, and in fact they are still used to this
day in modern medicine. So there are specific species of
leech such as hiroudu medicanalysis or the European medical leech,
which can be used for a variety of procedures. So leeches,
(36:37):
as I mentioned at the top of the show, have
an anticoagulant in its saliva, and this is very helpful
in aiding with blood flow. Usually it's blood flow like
into the leech so that it can drink your blood.
It's very useful for the leech, but if you are
having an issue such as with clotting or in the
(36:57):
case of surgery where you're grafting skin or reattaching a
finger or body part, it can be a problem to
get blood flowing, you know, from your body into this
new attached flesh or body part. And so leeches are
actually still used to this day to prevent or treat
(37:19):
something called venous congestion following some plastic surgeries. So venous
congestion being like the blood is just not flowing properly
as it should, and you know, the anticoagulant in their
saliva is something that can help with blood clotting. And
in addition to that anticoagulant in their saliva, they also
(37:42):
excrete antimicrobial, anti inflammatory, and analgesic or painkilling compounds. So
I do think that there could have been some cases
that pretty much by accident, they used leeches in a
way that did help the patient, you know, back in
the day. But nowadays, you know, doctors aren't just like
(38:04):
plucking leeches from a nearby pond and slapping them on patients.
There are like medical grade leeches that are bred and
kept specifically for medical usage.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Bread, they went to medical school degrees, they put on
little lab coats on.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Them, doctor mister sucky sucky. Yeah, and they're actually approved
by the FDA, which is h I love that, uh so,
but you know, I was wondering, like, do they actually work?
Are we kind of once again getting fooled into putting
(38:40):
leeches on our body by weirdo doctors? So I've been
reading the leech medicine literature and suffering through just bad, terrible,
disgusting medical pictures, so you don't have to. Uh. One
potential problem with using leeches that I've found is that
(39:03):
even if these are medical grade animals, they still can
have bacteria in their saliva. So people on leech therapy
are also given antibiotics to make sure that they don't
get infected from the leeches bacteria. Also, you know, despite
our fun history with bood blood litting, blood loss is
(39:24):
not great for tissues, so if too much blood is
lost through leech therapy, it can actually hinder healing. So
there are actually definite downsides to using leeches. But I
did read a review of leech use in medicine.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Well, you're gonna say, like an Amazon review for like leeches.
This is like sucked just the right amount of blood
five stars, three.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
And a half stars. Worked really well for letting out
my blood, but package arrived slightly damaged the problem with
leech itself. Just the box was a little dented. I
didn't like that. I love those reviews, so yeah. But
in these reviews of use of leeches in medicine, do
(40:10):
find that they are effective in salvaging tissues that are
at risk of necrosis. So necrosis is tissue death. So
they have a success rate hovering around seventy to eighty percent,
which is pretty good. There is some evidence that more
modern approaches than that simply that more innovative approaches that
(40:34):
simply mimic the leeches method of action using anticoagulant catheterization,
which is like inserting like very small tubes. Again, everything's tubes,
tubes all the way down. That these are more useful
in certain types of reconstructive surgery. So there is I
(40:55):
think that we might eventually move away from the leech
if we can find techniques that don't come with the
downsides that the leeches have in terms of like bacteria
and blood loss. But leeches are still definitely on the table.
I mean, I've got some leeches on my table right now.
Really I wish, I wish I want a pet leach.
(41:18):
I don't, but I do, but I don't, But I kind.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Of cute ears and whisker.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I could put like a tiny like if I just
sort of taped a little pair of tidy cat ears
onto a leach, and I think that'd be cute. I
have I see I don't remember where this was, but
I think I saw someone had a pet leach and
they put like a bow on it, and I feel
like it's just like a tumbler thing or something. Yeah,
(41:45):
it was, I don't know, cute in a horrible kind
of way, but yeah, I think that's the takeaway, right,
leeches are cute in a horrible kind of way. Joey,
what's your takeaway?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
My takeaway is I think that we should talk about
the biggest leeches of all the federal government.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Just guessing, Wow, funny, when did this get so political?
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Immediately veers into like, I don't know, like the real
leeches billionaires.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Reviews from leech Lover fifty seven. When did this show
get so political? Can we get back to the leeches?
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Pare we get back to the leeches. Yeah, yeah, that's fun. Yeah, no,
I think that. Yeah, this is super interesting. Leeches seem
very cute. If a leach was if a leech was
a cat, I would love leeches more. And if a
cat wanted to drink my blood, oh for sure, let it.
And uh yeah, leeches are real creepy. And yeah that
(42:52):
is the extent of my opinion on leeches. They're fine.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
They're fine leeches. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Okay, So also, I will not eat my parents.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
I'm that's a coincidence because I'm not gonna eat my
parents either.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Multiple times.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
So onto something that I like to call a little game.
That was a weirdly constructed sentence, but I'm leaving it
in weird game. And that game is called Guess who squawk?
And the Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I play
Mystery Animal sound and you, the guests, and you the listener,
try to guess who squawking. It can be any animal
(43:32):
in the world. Uh. Last week's mystery animal sound hint
was this don't call this little guy Fido, but you
love digging holes?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Oh whatever that is?
Speaker 1 (43:47):
It sounds adorable, So, uh, you know, obviously we've got
two animal sounds going on here. Can you guess both
of them?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Okay? One of them is a human, good job? Yeah yeah,
the other animal? Okay, So this could just be that
I just love cats so much that I imprint just
the sound of cats onto everything I hear. So I
want to say that definitely sounds a little bit yawie.
(44:18):
Part of me wants to say, either a lynx or
a carocle.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Is that your final answer?
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I would say my confidence is thirty.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
But yes, I'm sorry, Joey, You're not going home with
a million dollars because this is the prairie dog and
I don't have a million dollars, so you would doubt
that anyways.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
No, it's the opposite of the opposite of a cat
a dog a cat.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Congratulations to Bob and Charlie, Emily M and antib who
all guessed correctly. Prairie dogs are not dogs. They are
actually in the squirrel fit family. They are a species
of ground squirrels. They are found all over North America.
In Mexico. They are prodigious diggers and they help till
(45:09):
the soil. They dig up nutrients which helps with top
soil renewal. There are actually five species of prairie dog
and they're all highly social. They live in prairie dog
towns that consist of family groups, and they also kiss
each other as a greeting. They will stand up on
their hind legs and just little little mouth, little mouth
(45:31):
on cheek, mouth on mouth, little Eh. It's very very cute.
They are adorable. I love them.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Ah, that's so cute.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
If a prairie dog wanted to suck your blood, would
you let it?
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Uh? Wait? Would try to kiss me beforehand?
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (45:49):
It does try to kiss humans. I mean, okay, wait,
is it trying to suck blood through my mouth while
kissing me?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Or is it like kiss? It's like kiss?
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Hi?
Speaker 1 (45:58):
There? Howdy me? A little prey dug. Maybe he's wearing
a little cowboy hat and then he's like, hey, can
I have some of your blood?
Speaker 2 (46:05):
He's wearing a cowboy hat. Absolutely yes, yeah. If it's
any cute animal that wants to drink my blood, it's
going to be hard for me to say no.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
So if I put a cowboy like a tiny cowboy
hat on a leech, would you let it suck your blood?
Speaker 2 (46:19):
In this situation? Does this leech also have whiskers?
Speaker 1 (46:22):
We can we can accommodate that.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Sure, yes, no, no question, yes.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
All right, onto this week's mystery animal sound. The hint
this patriotic bird often doesn't get credit for its work.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
So that honestly, wait time, Am I gonna listen to it?
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yeah? Let me play.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
I think I think I already know what it is.
Come on, Actually, before I hear the sound, I'm gonna say, uh,
And now I want to hear the sound and see
if I was right.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
You are absolutely correct. I think you're the first guest
who has guessed the sound without hearing the sound first
I am. I am gonna bleep out your answer because
it must remain a secret for the audience, but I
will leave in the fact that you are victorious and
you're going home with one leaches. Yay, okay, okay. So
(47:27):
here is the sound.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
What's really funny about that specific bird is that oftentimes,
like for like you know, uh, Native American, you know,
characters in old westerns and stuff like that, you'll usually
hear like just this, like you know, an eagle co
while you know, if the Native character is talkyang or
something like that. Usually like I'm, you know, a sacred
medicine man, and like like and they'll show an eagle
if you heard that sound, but like, eagles do not
(47:52):
make that sound. Eagles make just more of like a
really like a baby kind of a like kind of sound. So,
because eagles don't sound as cool as you think that
they would sound old, you know, movie directors took redtail
hawk sounds and just put them over eagles because they're like,
that feels more like what an eagle would sound.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Yeah, exactly, They're like this sounds much more majestic than
the little like weird little like giggle me all that. Yeah,
and so yeah, I'll leave that in so many hints
you guys this week. So if you think you know
who is the ghost writer behind the typically what we
(48:33):
ascribe to eagles, right to be at Creature Feature Pod
at gmail dot com with your answers.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Joey, I just want to say, I just want to say,
eagles more.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Proud of you sound like they're exactly why do we
have to change eagles? I think they're great as is,
and like you know, it's like we should have a
Happy feat movie, but for eagles, right. That was the
thing with the Happy Feet movie. Isn't it like be
proud of your fit your whole thing, your business.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah, why yeah, that sounds the right, why not.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yeah, So, Joey, thank you so much for joining me today.
Oh what are you up to? Just what's what's go?
What's your vibe? Is it too much blood? Is too
much blood your vibe?
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Yeah? I feel like my vibe is this morning not
enough blood. But I'm gonna have a nice cup of
blood after this. Just really blood up?
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Is it your parents' blood?
Speaker 2 (49:29):
I've already said on the record, Yeah, yeah, I'm good.
I just came out with a really good digital series
called gon Native. It's a series of animated comedy PSAs
and I'm just like weird my coroaggressions that Native American
indigenous people deal with on a regular basis. You can
check all those out at Gonnative dot tv. That's super fun.
(49:50):
And then yeah, you can follow me on Twitter, Instagram
and blue You can follow me on Twitter, TikTok and
blue Sky at Joey Tainment, And you can follow me
on Instagram at Joey Cliff with like five or six
eyes because a twelve year old took Joey Cliff with
one eyes and I've just got a deal. And then uh, yeah,
(50:13):
so check out my digital series. Watch that and then uh,
you know, just uh buy a leach and let it
suck your blood. I'm gonna promote leeches.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I'm legally required to say that you shouldn't buy a
leech and let it suck your blood by my lawyer.
But hey, lawyers, am I right leeches themselves. I'm kidding
I very much that I.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Was trying to think of what it's like, what's the
joke of like a human leech right as federal government billionaires?
But no, I feel like lawyers is a good except
for my lawyer. My lawyers greater, you.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Know what, Like, lawyers have a job to do to
keep our judicial system afloat, and I think it's weird
that we're like, hey, they're leeches, so you know, yeah, yeah,
I'm I'm not. I'm not gonna i'm us unless the
comparison is that, like, hey, they are helpful in certain
medical situations, and then then the analogy.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Works, right, I mean, to be fair, my lawyer does
drink a cup of blood every.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Day, So look, you gotta have a little bit of
blood if you want to remain charismatic and social in
the courtroom. You gotta have that blood energy, that sanguine
humor going on there. Well, we've slandered enough people on
this podcast, I think, so, Hey, thank you so much
for listening. And if you're enjoying the show and you
(51:33):
leave a rating or of you, even you leech lover
fifty seven who was annoyed that we got too political,
leave a review, I'll read it. I read all of them, actually,
and thank you to the Space Cossics for their super
awesome song XO. Lumina Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
(51:54):
the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or hey, guess what wherever
you listen to your favorite shows? I don't care, do
what you want anarchy anyways, Uh, see you next Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Yeah. Leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, les leeches. Yeah,
yep bye, Yeah they are okay,
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Many Parasites, Katie Golden, and today I want to
talk to you about one of the world's most notorious parasites. Leeches.
These little suckers love our blood, but they're far more
devious and suck far more than you might think. Discover
(00:28):
this more as we answer the age old question is
leech is the best medicine? Joining me today is friend
of the show Garfield, appreciator, comedian, TV writer and enrolled
Keal's Indian tribal member, as well as the creator of
the digital series Gone Native, Joey Clift.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Welcome. Yeah, everybody, thanks so much for having me. I'm
always excited to come back and talk about things that suck.
That's leeches. That's what they do.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
That's what they do, suck and it's funny because suck.
I mean two things at the same time. Joey, when
I have you on, we usually talk about cats because
we are both big fans of cats. We're both big
fans of Garfield. So this is a little bit of
a pivot. We're pivoting to leeches. Now are you Are
(01:19):
you on board with the rebrand?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah? I mean, I feel like I'm like a notorious
cat guy, but I guess I'm okay with shifting to
being a notorious leech guy. I feel like that. I
feel like that's now that I'm getting older, now that
I'm getting to medicine.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, getting more refined. I mean, if you think about it, right,
like leeches are the cats of the insect world. They
just kind of suck off of our lifeblood. And you
know that's about it, right, Cats just kind of live
off of us. They take our food, they take our resources,
(01:54):
and don't really give anything in your turn except for
being adorable, just like a leech.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah. And I think that if you think about it,
like Garfield is for sure a leech. I mean he's
basically sucking the life of John Arbuckle. Like also in
this world, John our buckles blood is lasagna.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, I didn't really think about that metaphor much past
the initial thought his veins.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Are full of ricotta. Yeah. I mean, you know, so
leeches look love them or hate them, they exist and
they're everywhere, and personally I like them. Maybe I don't
want a bunch of them on me at once, but
you know, they're really fascinating. Actually, uh, what are your
things on leeches?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Wait? Well, wait question. Okay, you said you didn't want
a bunch of them on you. What is the max
amount of leeches that you'd want on you.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Let's see. I'm gonna say two, one on each leg,
and then any more than that, I think I'd start
to get a little bit unnerved, you know what I mean,
Like cause, like, once it's three leeches, it's like, all right, guys,
what am I a buffet? But if it's two leeches,
then it's sort of just a friendly gathering. It's like
(03:03):
a date. It's like a little leech dinner date, and
that's not so bad. But yeah, I don't want to
be a leech buffet.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That makes sense. And you're asking what my opinion on
leeches is. Into that, I'm gonna say, let's see if
I can sing this the Jack Black Mario Brothers song
leeches leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches. I'm fine
with you. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Nice, very good. I have not seen that movie, despite
I think it being free on Twitter. I've heard you can, so, yeah,
leeches are really really interesting. There are many species of leeches.
And a lot of leeches that we're familiar with have
these three jaws that look like a grappling hook to
(03:53):
puncture your skin, such as the North American medicinal leech.
And we'll talk about why it's called that later, but yeah,
it has three jaws and around fifty to sixty tiny
teeth or denticles on each jaw, and they use these
jaws to saw into your skin and make a wound
through which to suck your blood. So you know, they're
(04:16):
like tiny doctors or vampires. Tiny vampire doctors who surgically
cut open your skin so they can eat your blood.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I mean, I do base my value of like how
good my doctor is based on how many teeth they have. Yeah, no,
so far leeches are great doctors.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Our teeth better doctor. My doctor just has teeth like
coming out of his nose, and you know that's good.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Oh, I'd let that doctor do whatever surgery on you
thought was a good idea.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So their saliva famously contains a potent anticoagulant that can
cause you to bleed for over twelve hours. Now, this
sounds very dangerous, but you know, if if it's just
one leech incision, right, it's you're probably not going to
lose too much of your blood. Now, if it's you know,
(05:08):
a bunch of leeches, that could start to be a problem.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, I mean I feel like a leech, like is
could one leech suck all of the blood from your body?
Or like how much blood can one leech hold?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So it kind of depends on the species of leech.
One leech could definitely not suck all the blood from
your body. We actually have, we have a good amount
of blood, probably gallons. I actually don't know how much
the total blood a human being.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Here with five cups something like that.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I think more than five cups. I'm not a serial killer,
so I have not memorized how much blood.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It's at least like a mountain dew two later bottle.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
It's yeah, at least so no one leech cannot suck
you dry. They can suck a lot of blood, like
they can, you know, increase in sol eyes massively and
absorb a huge amount of blood. But I would say it,
I mean, it depends on the species. Some are small
(06:08):
and will only be able to suck so much blood,
and some are larger and can get a good amount
of blood in them.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, can a leech suck all of your blood? No?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
I know that's not true for like a you know,
average size like North American medical leech. They can consume
around ten milli liters after a feeding, which is a
lot for the leech. That's like ten times its own weight.
But you know, for a human, that's totally manageable as
(06:45):
long as it's like one leech.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I wonder, is any I mean, okay, so I'm answering
this question knowing the answer already of like, have there
ever been so many leeches on somebody that the leeches
have sucked all of their blood out? And then I've
just kind of realized, Oh, of course people use leeches
for medicinal purposes. One percent people.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Died from them, probably from medical malpractice back in the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I think that there have been rare cases of leeches
causing death due to severe anemia. But I think these
were actually ingested not external leeches.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I really want to know the context of why somebody
ate alive leech.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Well, it was not. These were called pharyngeal leeches, so
they were ingested on accident in contaminated drinking water. So yeah,
so I think that they actually attach inside of the throat,
and yeah, because you don't know they're there, and it
just kind of causes a severe anemia on accident. They're
(07:59):
usually ectopair sites. But that's that seems much more likely
than being killed by leeches on your body, because you're
gonna probably notice them and be able to pull them
off before that happens.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So okay, So I have a question about leeches. Uh,
if a leech was as cute as a cat, or
if a cat required drinking your blood, would you have
a would you like, would you give a cat just
like a little bit of your blood over day? I
probably would.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, Oh I absolutely would. Honestly, you put a little
bow on a leech and I'd probably let it, you know,
eib on me. That's all right, I'm not Yeah, I
drink guy. Yeah, I used to be sort of squeamish
about getting my blood drawn. But I think if it
was done by a leech and the leech like was
(08:55):
like thank you, you know, and really cute and had
big little puppy dog eyes, absolutely i'd let it check
my blood.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, if it leached me out at me, like if
after a leech like and it took a mix sip
of my blood. It looked me in the eyes and
went like no, I'd be like, you could have as
much as you want.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
I would just assume probably at that point I had
lost so much blood that I'm hallucinating, but I'd still
be on board.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Most species of leeches are aquatic. That's how people accidentally
ingest them in the water. That's how you get them,
like after you like wade through water or swim and
then you come out and like, hey, I've got a
leech on me. Whoops. They typically live in fresh water
environments and some live in marine environments. But there are
actually a few species of leeches that are terrestrial and
(09:44):
they live in moist forest floors. Uh. And terrestrial leeches
have a really interesting trick for when the weather gets
too dry, they will burrow underground to avoid total water loss,
and they're out of skin, will dry out, and they're
kind of like they're also covered in mucus, so that's
helps them as well. And they can remain like this
(10:06):
for months and then you just add a little bit
of water and then they will regain their moisture and
be back to normal. They'll reanimate. They're kind of like
those you know those like little like what are they
like sponge dinosaurs and you put them in water and
they can get really big. I feel like that. I
have never seen those toys since I was like tin
(10:26):
But uh, there used to be a toy where it's
like you get this like like a little capsule or
something and you'd put it in water and suddenly absorb
all the water.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
And that sounds like me when I'm just like binge
watching a very long TV show where it's like, oh,
I just kind of stop moving. My body gets covered
in like a mucus like substance, and then at a
certain point I cover myself in water and then I'm.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Like I'm back, I'm moisturized and I'm thriving. Yeah, that's
me playing Legend of Zelda. I uh fun, It's it's
very fun. I don't recommend it if you're interested in
staying hydrated and taking potty breaks as needed, because you know,
I will sit there and kind of shrivel up like
(11:12):
a leech and just be like, but Link needs to
save Princess Zelda. Did you know that Zelda's the name
of the princess? And you know it's it's a problem.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, that's like something about like I feel like I
have to be careful with how much I play video
games because I used to just be like a huge gamer,
and like now I'm at the point where like, if
I get really into a game, I'll like start it
in the morning and then I'll like blink and it's
three in the morning, and just like I haven't eaten
any food or drinking water, where am I?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know? Leeches are just like us in this way.
They will sort of chill out, dry out, become little
raisins until water is poured on them and they rehydrate.
There are actually over six hundred and eighty speeches of leeches,
and not all of them are black and shiny or brown.
(12:05):
You know. Some are actually bright orange, some are red
or yellow, Some are multi colored with stripes or speckles.
Some can even be blue or green. The tiger leech
of Borneo has bright orange and yellow stripes. It looks
like the garfield of leeches. Joey, look at this beautiful leech.
(12:25):
Can you say you would not let this leech, you know,
suck a little bit of your blood?
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Okay, yes, without question. My question about this leech is
do we know what his opinions about Mondays are.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Unlike Garfield, he's actually not a fan of Tuesdays. Why
I know, right, He's.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Completely different from everything I know. So, the the reason
that leeches are different colors. I know that sometimes with
like snakes, colors will show you, like you know, sometimes
colors are for camouflage purposes. Sometimes it's like show you
that they're venomous or not. Is there a reason that
leeches are different colors? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
I mean, you know, some of it can be camouflaged,
some of it could be a warning coloration. Some of
it could be potentially for mating, like mating coloration. There's
all sorts of you know, these different mechanisms are any
of them like.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
To distinguish flavors, Like if I eat the orange one,
does you taste like an orange? Or eat the black one?
Does you taste like licorice?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
This one is? This orange one is actually hot cheetohs flavored.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So yeah, that's a delicious leech. I mean, like this
is this is why people die eating leeches. As I
look at that and I'm like, oh, it tastes like
hot cheetohs. I'll pop a couple of leeches.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, that's how they get you. So, marine leeches are
often really tiny. They're actually not that well understood or
well researched. Some of them are actually quite pretty though.
These are like black and white or orange and white striped.
These ones look like little creamsicle flavored ones. Think they're
actually kind of pretty.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah. I would. I would definitely eat a creamstickle flavored leech. Yeah.
Also question about Okay, so this photo that we're looking at,
it's a couple of leeches that are attached to something
that I initially thought was like somebody's like beltline, like
right above their jeans. Is that a fish? What are these?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
It is a fish. It's a fish. It is leeching
a fish. It's sucking the blood out of a fish.
So yeah, I'm sure fishes don't really like them, but
I think they're pretty. But yeah, they're tiny. Uh, and
so they can kind of like hang out on a
fish without the fish really noticing. And the method by
(14:40):
which leeches suck blood differs. So some leeches, like the
medical sorry, the North American medicinal leech that I described,
has that those three jaws that work like a sort
of surgical grappling hook.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, it's like like it's like a grabber thing.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, like a grabber thing. But some leeches have sharp
like you said, you.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Said, surgical grappling hook, and then I said, yeah, like
a grabber guy.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Like a little grabby guy. But you know, other leeches
have sharp proboscises that they used to poke a hole
in their host and suck up blood. It's sort of
like a straw, like a sharp straw. Leeches also common
a variety of sizes. The smallest leeches are around half
an inch or one centimeter long, and the largest species
(15:27):
is the giant amazon leech. It is I would say
upsettingly large. It can be nearly eighteen inches long or
forty five centimeters and four inches wide or ten centimeters.
It uses the proboscis method of puncturing its host and
slurps you up like a shake. I think I would
(15:47):
hit my limit with this leech. Like if I found
this leech on me, I think I'm just gonna go
till night night time. I'm gonna pass out for a
minute so I don't have to face reality that there's
this giant leech on my leg.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, looking at this, you have a photo of this
leech for us. It's so big that it's wrapped basically
fully around a person's leg. It looks terrible. It looks
like a snake, except a snake that exclusively drinks your blood.
But a big question what if it fit me out,
if it me out and was covered with fur, would
you be okay with you?
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I mean, how big are its eyes in this scenario?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Are it's big and they's just real real big and cute?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, okay, I'm letting it suck my blood in that circumstance.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But this one take like, take it all, take it all.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
This one is not fluffy, its size are not big
and cute. Uh, and it is actually a rare sighting.
They were once thought to be extinct, so of course
researchers brought them back to UC Berkeley to start breeding them.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
So my question there is, I feel like somebody's reaction
to oh, they're probably extinct was good, yeah, yeah, and
then some jerk was just like, no, we must save them.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
We must save them. I mean, yeah, jokes aside. It
makes sense, right, because animals that, even like gross animals,
can have a lot of interesting things about them that
either teaches the teaches us about the environment, like the
local ecology can even have like medicinal uses. We'll talk
about that later, but like the leech could have some
(17:28):
interesting compound, right, and it's saliva that only this leech
species have that could help us better understand medicine or
it could you know, help us understand how something like this.
Why why is this leech extremely big compared to other leeches.
So there is a lot of information. Also, once you
start naming the leeches, I feel like you can kind
(17:50):
of convince yourself they're cute. So they named the progenitor
speech Grandma Moses after the artist. Yeah, it was after
this folk artist who, as everyone remembers, Grandma Motives, Grandma Moses,
the folk artist who was a giant leech. She these
(18:13):
beautiful sort of Americana folk art and yes she was
also yes, yes, but yeah, Grandma Moses. The leech had
over seven hundred and fifty offspring, So wow, how does
she do it? How does she have a full time
career as a folk artist and have over seven hundred
and fifty offspring? That, ladies, is what I call leaning in.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah that I say, yeah, yes, queen boss, yeah, spech queen,
that's real girl boss entered. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Actually the most species most species of leeches are hermaphrodite.
So girl boss boy boss them boss.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah they yeah, I stand uh binary leech wuaene king yeah,
whatever the term is for r Latin binary beach royalty.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I think we got it.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah yeah, yeah, So like I feel like I just
kind of I just realized for sure. The scientist that
decided to read these leeches is a Spider Man villain. Right.
He bears a leech costume. He exclusively drinks stuff through
a straw. There's a giant leech in his room that
he talks to.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
One hundred percent, right, I'm shocked that there's not a
more prominent supervillain who's leech themed. I'm gonna look up
leech super villain. I know there's like the Tick, which
feels so, but the Tick is a hero leech character.
There's just a character named the Leech found in Marvel,
and I guess he's like a mutant, but he's looks
(19:50):
like a cute little guy. I don't know. It's it's
interesting that we don't have like leech Man, who's just
kind of a big leech with maybe arms, just like
a big leech with arms and you call him leech Man,
and he has a tragic backstory as like a dentist
or something. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, the Marvel character Leech was created by Chris Claremont
and John Remita junior. And my note to them after
looking at a picture of this character is do.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Better research leeches more, because this is not a leech.
This is just a weird little doctor.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Guy with guy with green skin and three fingers.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
He's a cute little guy. I mean not to say
leeches aren't cute, but this is not. I want leech
representation in super villains or hear.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, it is important for leeches to be able to
see themselves in the media.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yes, So, Joey, what if I told you that leeches
don't always suck blood, or don't always just suck blood.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
I would say my entire world has been shook a
shook out. Oh god, oh god, oh god god. Yeah,
I don't know that. Tell me more.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, some species of leeches are not merely parasites. They
are active carnivores and predators. So I want to talk
about the horse leech. It's sadly that would be impressive.
It's sadly not like a little leech with horse legs
that winnies, but it is a fat leech. It grows
(21:32):
around six inches to around six inches or fifteen centimeters long.
They are found all over Europe and in parts of Asia,
and they like to hunt prey, and their prey is
one of the most adorable little guys in the world,
baby toads. So oh yeah, baby toads are called toadlets,
(21:56):
and they are adorable. Unfortunately for them, horse leeches find
them bite sized and delicious. So uh. The thing about
horse leeches is they don't actually suck human blood, but
they do sneak up on baby toadlets and quickly engulf them,
swallowing them whole and alive. And it's just kind of
(22:22):
sad to watch because you see this little baby toad
with its head sticking out of a leech with an
expression of oh God, why why me? I hate mondays
and this leech is just sucking it down.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Okay, now I'm googling horse leech eats toad to see
what comes up. Is there a photo of this? Oh God,
this is so depressing. Yeah, yeah, this reminds me a
lot of I think the horse leeches was probably the
design that was usually as the inspiration for leeches in
the Resident Evil series, like the couple of Residubles. They
(23:01):
were like leeches. They would have like one tooth and
they would jump up on you and then like hook
their tooth on your leg and it was always very annoying. Bleat.
They give you the bleeding status effect, which was the worst.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
I hate it when leeches give me the bleeding status effect. Well,
these leeches give these toadlets the eaten whole status effect.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah, the dead status effect.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That you are getting digested inside this leech. They can
even grab onto the toelet with their butt end, either
end can grab and then they just sort of feed
themselves the toelet from their butt into their mouth, so
kind of a humiliating end for the totlet. I feel
like it's not very digulously.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So these their butt is like like an elephant's.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Trunk, yeah yeah, or yeah, like a like a fork,
but yeah, I guess you're right, more like an elephant's
trunk to put it into their mouth.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
So yeah, that sounds that's deeply unsanitary.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
It's well, you know what I feel like, when you're
a leech, you don't concern yourself with such things, right,
such as being sanitary or your war crimes against toadlets.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yeah. Like, if I could use my butt as like
a grabber in which to eat things, I just wouldn't.
I just would not do that.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
M Yeah, I mean, you know, I feel like it
would be quite a different society if we could grab
things with our butts. It maybe it would be better.
Maybe we'd have your wars because we would be more
humble given that we grab stuff with our butts.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, you are describing a perfect utopia.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
So some leachh Some leeches actually specialize in eating worms.
Kinnabalu giant red leeches of Borneo are such an example.
As its name implies, it's pretty big. It grows to
be around twenty inches or fifty centimeters long. This leech
(25:05):
will start feeling up a worm and looking for the
end of the worm as you do. You know, you
find a worm, you gotta find it's one of its ends.
And then once it's Once it finds the end of
the worm, it starts to suck up the worm like
a giant spaghetti. Despite the fact that the leech is
(25:26):
not that much bigger than the worm itself, so it
looks like a fat spaghetti eating a fat spaghetti, and
it's very slimy.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, it seems deeply humiliating. I'm looking at a picture
of a borneo red leach eating a worm right now.
It seems like it would probably be deeply embarrassing if
you were a worm that was eaten by another worm,
but also like not a worm that's like, yeah, you're right,
it's like pretty much the same size as you. Like.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
As I have frequently stated on this show, the world
is just tubes or complicated tubes, or tubes and tubes.
So this is just a case of a tube eating
another tube, and I think that's just about how you
can sum up nature.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yeah, look, it's tubes all the way down.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
It really is. I mean, we're tubes, but we have
a lot of extra parts, right, Like, yeah we are,
but we are when when you get down to it,
we're just tubes and then we eat tubes, right, spaghetti,
even if you're a vegetarian, right like you eat you
eat tubes. I feel like a carrot is kind of
a tube, right, It's got tube like vascular structures inside
(26:36):
the carrot. Other animals are tubes no matter what you do,
we're just tubes in tubes in tubes.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Well you should. You should put that on either a
t shirt or a poster, like a motivational poster. I
feel like I would sell a trillion copies and start
a new religion.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
I'm gonna start tattooing it. I'm going to start a
tattoo shop. But the only thing that I tattoo is
we're all tubes and tubes and tubes.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah, yeah, like all.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So there's another group of leeches called the Glossophonidae family
who are flat and oval shaped. They're kind of an
interesting leech because they're not just your regular sort of squat,
fat or tube shaped leech. They they're the pancakes of
the leech world. They live in fresh water bodies bodies
(27:31):
of fresh water. Some species feed on crocodilians, so they
attach themselves onto crocodilians and suck their blood, which is
pretty metal props to them. Some feed on turtles and
will actually spend most of their life attached to the turtle,
like the turtle is a little floating island. They may
(27:53):
sometimes be found on the turtle shell, but they don't actually,
they can't suck anything through the turtle shell, so they're
just kind of hanging out there. They're just chilling there,
and when they need to feed, they will attach themselves
to the turtle's flesh, intentionally going for a part of
the turtle's body where the turtle has a hard time
scratching it off, which just sounds so obnoxious for the turtle.
(28:16):
You've got your little turtle shell home, so you've got
a squatter living on your turtle shell and then kind
of going to your nether regions where you can't scratch
it off, and then sucking your blood. Rude, bad house.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That also feels like, I mean, I feel like that's
a lot of coverage area for a turtle. I feel
like turtles aren't really known for flexibility or like being
able to use things off. So it feels like there's
like ninety percent of the turtle it probably is not
going to be able to get you off of it
if you're there.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
That's a very good point. Have you ever seen a
turtle doing yoga? I haven't.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
I have not, and I feel like that answers a
lot of questions you now that I think about it.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
So, but some members of the gloss Phona Day family
prey on fresh water snails, so they will use their
proboscis that's the leech implement. That's like a pokey straw,
and they will just suck the snail's fluids right out.
They'll completely like they kill the snail. This is not parasitism.
This is predatory behavior. It's like eating escargo with a straw.
(29:20):
So you know, they're very French.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Hoow classy. Yeah, I'm watching video of this and this
is horrible.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
If you ever wanted to feel sorry for a snail,
this is a good opportunity.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
But you know, and the leeches like kind of clear,
so you could like see you could like see it
like eating the Yeah, you can.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
See the juice is traveling through it. It's fun. It's
like it's like a fun fun straw, crazy straw that's
see through and you can see it going right in there. Terrified,
but so you don't. These leeches, the Glossiphoniday family leeches,
they are actually quite loving parents. They exhibit extraordinary parental care.
(30:09):
They will carry their offspring in a membranous pouch on
their bellies like a kangaroo, until their offspring are large
enough to survive on their own. Another adorable fact is
that once their offspring emerged from the pouch, they will
often attach themselves to the parents and suck their parents dry.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
It's so cute, osa, oh got it. They were like
me when I still live with my mom at like
twenty two.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
All these a lot of parents listening. You're like, mm hmm, yep,
that's my Yeah. Yeah, who doesn't want a parent smoothie
though when you think about it, right, like just kind
of stick a straw and mima or pop pop and
suck all their blood.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, just shake them up and go.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
I love my parents. I'm not I'm not gonna, you know,
I don't know, like eat my parents. I feel like
I have to say that when after I've stated that, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Mean my parents are both like very skinny, so I
feel like they're probably mostly crystle. Also my parents and
will not eat them.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
We're both we're both stating for the record, we're not
gonna be cannibals and eat our parents.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Yeah. So when they get eaten, un well, yeah, don't
look at us run the record saying a what we
didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
It wasn't gonna be us air tighter. Yeah, So Joey,
I promise to talk about leeches as medicine. Are you
excited to learn about blood litting?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I am, yes, very I'm very excited to hear about this.
Very I'm sure hip new medical practice that is sweeter
than it.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So, as you probably already know, leeches used to be
used in blood letting under the dubious science of humors.
So this was a practice, you know, hundreds of years ago,
and the idea was that the body was comprised of
four humors, blood, yellow bile, black bile, and flim. Of
(32:17):
course we do have blood, bile and phlim in our bodies,
but humorism ascribed questionable properties to these fluids and had
unscientific ideas of how these humors had to be balanced.
So blood was thought to be the main source of
energy of the soul and the body, and having a
(32:40):
sanguine nature meant to be energized social and enthusiastics. So
you got more blood, you're more charismatic, you're more of
a social butterfly. If you have less blood, I guess
you're more introverted, and you play more Legend of Zelda
instead of going out.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
That makes sense to me. So you basically to make
some many more extroverted you just to pump more blood
into their body.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Yeah, you put more blood in there. But yeah, so
everything has to be in balance according to humorism. So
if you had too much blood, you could get diseases,
and by letting out some of the blood, you'd put
your humors back into balance again. One theory as to
an origin of bloodletting is that the Egyptians mistook the
(33:27):
reddish pink fluid on hippos, which is actually a natural
secretion that acts as a sun protector. But they thought
that this fluid was blood. It's not. It's just like
a skin secretion. It's this pinkish red. It helps me
attack them.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
It's like homemade sunscreen for hippos.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Exactly exactly. But they thought that the hippo would actually
scratch itself to let out blood and soothe itself this way,
or heal itself, and so they thought this was practice
that they should perhaps copy. Blood litting was either done
by simply cutting into the patient or victim or with leeches.
(34:07):
So leeches were so popular in this medical practice that
early nineteenth century France imported over forty million leeches per year.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Cross.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah, so unfortunately, there's no scientific basis to blood litting.
We need our blood to be alive, and there's no
such thing as humor balance, and diseases aren't really caused
by too much blood. You can certainly have problems with
the concentration of certain cells or certain compounds in your blood.
(34:43):
So you can have too high of a concentration of
red blood cells in your blood or blood and fluids
building up too much in certain parts of the body.
But there's not really a thing. It's like it just
got too much blood in general, and it's causing bad
vibes within the body.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I really want to hear that from a doctor's just
like like yeah, you know, like like everything looks good,
but like I'm really sorry to tell you this. You
just have too much blood. You it was just so much.
You just like we just lose like a cup or
two of blood.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
You'll be good, right again, You could have you could
have some kind of issue with your blood, right, like
a balance of like hey, there's too much not enough
blood cells, too much blood cells, not enough plasma, too much.
You know, I'm not a doctor to be to be
very honest with you, and so you know, don't trust
(35:34):
me with your blood. However, Yeah, as far as I
understand it, there there's no disease that is just like
you got too much blood son.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, but I have a question about Okay, some medicinal leeches,
Like I know that like blood letting and leeches were
kind of used as just sort of like a medical
catch all for a long time where it was just
that was just kind of like the default like you know,
take a salt tablet and walk around the track once
or twice kind of solution. But is there are there
any sort of like medicinal qualities or benefits to leeches,
(36:10):
Like is there is there ever a situation where it
actually would make sense to use leeches to like lessen something.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yes, and in fact they are still used to this
day in modern medicine. So there are specific species of
leech such as hiroudu medicanalysis or the European medical leech,
which can be used for a variety of procedures. So leeches,
(36:37):
as I mentioned at the top of the show, have
an anticoagulant in its saliva, and this is very helpful
in aiding with blood flow. Usually it's blood flow like
into the leech so that it can drink your blood.
It's very useful for the leech, but if you are
having an issue such as with clotting or in the
(36:57):
case of surgery where you're grafting skin or reattaching a
finger or body part, it can be a problem to
get blood flowing, you know, from your body into this
new attached flesh or body part. And so leeches are
actually still used to this day to prevent or treat
(37:19):
something called venous congestion following some plastic surgeries. So venous
congestion being like the blood is just not flowing properly
as it should, and you know, the anticoagulant in their
saliva is something that can help with blood clotting. And
in addition to that anticoagulant in their saliva, they also
(37:42):
excrete antimicrobial, anti inflammatory, and analgesic or painkilling compounds. So
I do think that there could have been some cases
that pretty much by accident, they used leeches in a
way that did help the patient, you know, back in
the day. But nowadays, you know, doctors aren't just like
(38:04):
plucking leeches from a nearby pond and slapping them on patients.
There are like medical grade leeches that are bred and
kept specifically for medical usage.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Bread, they went to medical school degrees, they put on
little lab coats on.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Them, doctor mister sucky sucky. Yeah, and they're actually approved
by the FDA, which is h I love that, uh so,
but you know, I was wondering, like, do they actually work?
Are we kind of once again getting fooled into putting
(38:40):
leeches on our body by weirdo doctors? So I've been
reading the leech medicine literature and suffering through just bad, terrible,
disgusting medical pictures, so you don't have to. Uh. One
potential problem with using leeches that I've found is that
(39:03):
even if these are medical grade animals, they still can
have bacteria in their saliva. So people on leech therapy
are also given antibiotics to make sure that they don't
get infected from the leeches bacteria. Also, you know, despite
our fun history with bood blood litting, blood loss is
(39:24):
not great for tissues, so if too much blood is
lost through leech therapy, it can actually hinder healing. So
there are actually definite downsides to using leeches. But I
did read a review of leech use in medicine.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Well, you're gonna say, like an Amazon review for like leeches.
This is like sucked just the right amount of blood
five stars, three.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
And a half stars. Worked really well for letting out
my blood, but package arrived slightly damaged the problem with
leech itself. Just the box was a little dented. I
didn't like that. I love those reviews, so yeah. But
in these reviews of use of leeches in medicine, do
(40:10):
find that they are effective in salvaging tissues that are
at risk of necrosis. So necrosis is tissue death. So
they have a success rate hovering around seventy to eighty percent,
which is pretty good. There is some evidence that more
modern approaches than that simply that more innovative approaches that
(40:34):
simply mimic the leeches method of action using anticoagulant catheterization,
which is like inserting like very small tubes. Again, everything's tubes,
tubes all the way down. That these are more useful
in certain types of reconstructive surgery. So there is I
(40:55):
think that we might eventually move away from the leech
if we can find techniques that don't come with the
downsides that the leeches have in terms of like bacteria
and blood loss. But leeches are still definitely on the table.
I mean, I've got some leeches on my table right now.
Really I wish, I wish I want a pet leach.
(41:18):
I don't, but I do, but I don't, But I kind.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Of cute ears and whisker.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I could put like a tiny like if I just
sort of taped a little pair of tidy cat ears
onto a leach, and I think that'd be cute. I
have I see I don't remember where this was, but
I think I saw someone had a pet leach and
they put like a bow on it, and I feel
like it's just like a tumbler thing or something. Yeah,
(41:45):
it was, I don't know, cute in a horrible kind
of way, but yeah, I think that's the takeaway, right,
leeches are cute in a horrible kind of way. Joey,
what's your takeaway?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
My takeaway is I think that we should talk about
the biggest leeches of all the federal government.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Just guessing, Wow, funny, when did this get so political?
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Immediately veers into like, I don't know, like the real
leeches billionaires.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Reviews from leech Lover fifty seven. When did this show
get so political? Can we get back to the leeches?
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Pare we get back to the leeches. Yeah, yeah, that's fun. Yeah, no,
I think that. Yeah, this is super interesting. Leeches seem
very cute. If a leach was if a leech was
a cat, I would love leeches more. And if a
cat wanted to drink my blood, oh for sure, let it.
And uh yeah, leeches are real creepy. And yeah that
(42:52):
is the extent of my opinion on leeches. They're fine.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
They're fine leeches. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Okay, So also, I will not eat my parents.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
I'm that's a coincidence because I'm not gonna eat my
parents either.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Multiple times.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
So onto something that I like to call a little game.
That was a weirdly constructed sentence, but I'm leaving it
in weird game. And that game is called Guess who squawk?
And the Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I play
Mystery Animal sound and you, the guests, and you the listener,
try to guess who squawking. It can be any animal
(43:32):
in the world. Uh. Last week's mystery animal sound hint
was this don't call this little guy Fido, but you
love digging holes?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Oh whatever that is?
Speaker 1 (43:47):
It sounds adorable, So, uh, you know, obviously we've got
two animal sounds going on here. Can you guess both
of them?
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Okay? One of them is a human, good job? Yeah yeah,
the other animal? Okay, So this could just be that
I just love cats so much that I imprint just
the sound of cats onto everything I hear. So I
want to say that definitely sounds a little bit yawie.
(44:18):
Part of me wants to say, either a lynx or
a carocle.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Is that your final answer?
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I would say my confidence is thirty.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
But yes, I'm sorry, Joey, You're not going home with
a million dollars because this is the prairie dog and
I don't have a million dollars, so you would doubt
that anyways.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
No, it's the opposite of the opposite of a cat
a dog a cat.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Congratulations to Bob and Charlie, Emily M and antib who
all guessed correctly. Prairie dogs are not dogs. They are
actually in the squirrel fit family. They are a species
of ground squirrels. They are found all over North America.
In Mexico. They are prodigious diggers and they help till
(45:09):
the soil. They dig up nutrients which helps with top
soil renewal. There are actually five species of prairie dog
and they're all highly social. They live in prairie dog
towns that consist of family groups, and they also kiss
each other as a greeting. They will stand up on
their hind legs and just little little mouth, little mouth
(45:31):
on cheek, mouth on mouth, little Eh. It's very very cute.
They are adorable. I love them.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Ah, that's so cute.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
If a prairie dog wanted to suck your blood, would
you let it?
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Uh? Wait? Would try to kiss me beforehand?
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (45:49):
It does try to kiss humans. I mean, okay, wait,
is it trying to suck blood through my mouth while
kissing me?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Or is it like kiss? It's like kiss?
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Hi?
Speaker 1 (45:58):
There? Howdy me? A little prey dug. Maybe he's wearing
a little cowboy hat and then he's like, hey, can
I have some of your blood?
Speaker 2 (46:05):
He's wearing a cowboy hat. Absolutely yes, yeah. If it's
any cute animal that wants to drink my blood, it's
going to be hard for me to say no.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
So if I put a cowboy like a tiny cowboy
hat on a leech, would you let it suck your blood?
Speaker 2 (46:19):
In this situation? Does this leech also have whiskers?
Speaker 1 (46:22):
We can we can accommodate that.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Sure, yes, no, no question, yes.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
All right, onto this week's mystery animal sound. The hint
this patriotic bird often doesn't get credit for its work.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
So that honestly, wait time, Am I gonna listen to it?
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yeah? Let me play.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
I think I think I already know what it is.
Come on, Actually, before I hear the sound, I'm gonna say, uh,
And now I want to hear the sound and see
if I was right.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
You are absolutely correct. I think you're the first guest
who has guessed the sound without hearing the sound first
I am. I am gonna bleep out your answer because
it must remain a secret for the audience, but I
will leave in the fact that you are victorious and
you're going home with one leaches. Yay, okay, okay. So
(47:27):
here is the sound.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
What's really funny about that specific bird is that oftentimes,
like for like you know, uh, Native American, you know,
characters in old westerns and stuff like that, you'll usually
hear like just this, like you know, an eagle co
while you know, if the Native character is talkyang or
something like that. Usually like I'm, you know, a sacred
medicine man, and like like and they'll show an eagle
if you heard that sound, but like, eagles do not
(47:52):
make that sound. Eagles make just more of like a
really like a baby kind of a like kind of sound. So,
because eagles don't sound as cool as you think that
they would sound old, you know, movie directors took redtail
hawk sounds and just put them over eagles because they're like,
that feels more like what an eagle would sound.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Yeah, exactly, They're like this sounds much more majestic than
the little like weird little like giggle me all that. Yeah,
and so yeah, I'll leave that in so many hints
you guys this week. So if you think you know
who is the ghost writer behind the typically what we
(48:33):
ascribe to eagles, right to be at Creature Feature Pod
at gmail dot com with your answers.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Joey, I just want to say, I just want to say,
eagles more.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Proud of you sound like they're exactly why do we
have to change eagles? I think they're great as is,
and like you know, it's like we should have a
Happy feat movie, but for eagles, right. That was the
thing with the Happy Feet movie. Isn't it like be
proud of your fit your whole thing, your business.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah, why yeah, that sounds the right, why not.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yeah, So, Joey, thank you so much for joining me today.
Oh what are you up to? Just what's what's go?
What's your vibe? Is it too much blood? Is too
much blood your vibe?
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Yeah? I feel like my vibe is this morning not
enough blood. But I'm gonna have a nice cup of
blood after this. Just really blood up?
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Is it your parents' blood?
Speaker 2 (49:29):
I've already said on the record, Yeah, yeah, I'm good.
I just came out with a really good digital series
called gon Native. It's a series of animated comedy PSAs
and I'm just like weird my coroaggressions that Native American
indigenous people deal with on a regular basis. You can
check all those out at Gonnative dot tv. That's super fun.
(49:50):
And then yeah, you can follow me on Twitter, Instagram
and blue You can follow me on Twitter, TikTok and
blue Sky at Joey Tainment, And you can follow me
on Instagram at Joey Cliff with like five or six
eyes because a twelve year old took Joey Cliff with
one eyes and I've just got a deal. And then uh, yeah,
(50:13):
so check out my digital series. Watch that and then uh,
you know, just uh buy a leach and let it
suck your blood. I'm gonna promote leeches.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
I'm legally required to say that you shouldn't buy a
leech and let it suck your blood by my lawyer.
But hey, lawyers, am I right leeches themselves. I'm kidding
I very much that I.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Was trying to think of what it's like, what's the
joke of like a human leech right as federal government billionaires?
But no, I feel like lawyers is a good except
for my lawyer. My lawyers greater, you.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Know what, Like, lawyers have a job to do to
keep our judicial system afloat, and I think it's weird
that we're like, hey, they're leeches, so you know, yeah, yeah,
I'm I'm not. I'm not gonna i'm us unless the
comparison is that, like, hey, they are helpful in certain
medical situations, and then then the analogy.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Works, right, I mean, to be fair, my lawyer does
drink a cup of blood every.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Day, So look, you gotta have a little bit of
blood if you want to remain charismatic and social in
the courtroom. You gotta have that blood energy, that sanguine
humor going on there. Well, we've slandered enough people on
this podcast, I think, so, Hey, thank you so much
for listening. And if you're enjoying the show and you
(51:33):
leave a rating or of you, even you leech lover
fifty seven who was annoyed that we got too political,
leave a review, I'll read it. I read all of them, actually,
and thank you to the Space Cossics for their super
awesome song XO. Lumina Creature features a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
(51:54):
the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts, or hey, guess what wherever
you listen to your favorite shows? I don't care, do
what you want anarchy anyways, Uh, see you next Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Yeah. Leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, leeches, les leeches. Yeah,
yep bye, Yeah they are okay,
Creature Feature News
Host
Katie Goldin
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