Meet the leech, the misunderstood hero of aquatic ecosystems all over the world, who does not always suck blood!

How do leeches find their hosts? We explore how leeches sense heat, chemicals, and movements in their environments.

Scientists found a 430-million-year-old leech fossil, Macromyzon siluricus. It shows leeches first lived in oceans and did ...

As we tidy away the Dracula capes and glow-in-the-dark plastic fangs for another winter, one notorious blood sucker has had a particularly good year. For the first time the medicinal leech Hirudo ...

A newly described fossil reveals that leeches are at least 200 million years older than scientists previously thought, and that their earliest ancestors may have feasted not on blood, but on smaller ...

A remarkable fossil discovery has rewritten leech history. These creatures are now known to be over 200 million years older ...

The Wisconsin site is famed for its preservation of ancient soft-bodied organisms like leeches—leading Kenneth Gass, a ...

Scientists have uncovered video evidence that at least one species of terrestrial leech can jump. This behavior has been debated for over 100 years, and can now be put to rest following research by ...

For decades, scientists have posed one interesting question about leeches—can they jump? While the idea of jumping leeches might sound like it's only the stuff of nightmares—I still can't forget those ...

White men can’t jump, but terrestrial leeches can. This is now a scientific fact; after centuries of anecdotal reports, the parasites have been caught on video leaping from leaves in the Madagascan ...

NEAR OTTER TAIL LAKE, Minn. -- Ken Grewe plunges his hand into the bottom of a small, black plastic bag -- as if he were searching for remaining treats in a sack of candy. What Grewe is seeking is ...