Predators I Have Known - Alan Dean Foster [80]
I don’t care what people say about maintaining scientific detachment. Unless they are your specialty, parasites are an unpleasant sight at any time. Seeing one lying on the floor bloated with an ounce or two of your own blood and writhing drunkenly in a desperate but feeble attempt to get away produces sensations in mind and gut that are anything but dispassionate.
Resisting the urge to stomp my attacker to a pulp (and not wanting to mess the hardwood floor), I fought back the urge to heave, carefully scooped him up, and dumped him over the porch railing. There was nothing to be gained by artificially bringing forward the creature’s demise, besides which, birds and other creatures feed on leeches and might find this overstuffed individual especially nourishing. Feeling not very circle-of-life–ish, I stripped off the rest of my clothes and headed for the shower, wondering where and how I had been bitten.
The answer to both questions was soon forthcoming. Just above the waistband of where my pants snugged against my body, a perfectly circular wound not much smaller than a dime was bleeding merrily away. I immediately cleaned it with soap and water. It continued to bleed. I patted it down and put pressure on it with a clean towel. As soon as I moved the towel away, the bleeding resumed. I put a Band-Aid over it. It bled through the Band-Aid. There was absolutely no pain or discomfort. Just a steady flow of crimson me.
Digging into my supplies, I pulled out a packet of QR powder. Originally intended for the military, it’s formulated to instantly stop the bleeding from any wound. I was gratified to discover that it also works on tiger leech bites. But only temporarily. As long as the leech’s anticoagulant enzyme hirudin remains active in the wound, it will continue to bleed. Once my QR-induced scab came off, the bleeding resumed, albeit at a slower flow.
This is not dangerous, but it plays hell with your laundry.
Unlike the brown leech, which adds an anesthetic to the mix, the bite of the tiger leech is a sharp pinch you can feel. The one that got me must have hidden in the folds of my shirt, waiting to bite me until I put it back on. For such a primitive creature, it’s a sneaky little bastard. I felt the pinch, but thought it was from my waistband being too tight when I’d put my shirt back on.
The second time I got bit was on the drive out of the Danum and back to the base town of Lahad Datu. Anticipating no reason to get out of the 4x4, I was wearing much more comfortable attire: shorts and a slightly undersized sleeveless shirt. On the way out, however, the driver stopped the vehicle and gestured at the top of a nearby tree.
“Crested serpent eagle,” he explained, believing I’d want to get a picture. Indeed, I did. So I climbed out, camera in hand, and approached the tree for a better view, being careful of course not to make contact with any of the vegetation.
But you don’t have to make contact with the vegetation. Sensing you coming, the tiger leech can extend its body two or three inches outward over empty space. As I discovered later that night, this was more than enough to reach me.
Unlike my previous passenger, I never saw this one. Doubtless sated and content, it dropped off somewhere between the towns of Lahad Datu and Semporna. The calling card it left behind was unmistakable, though. That evening when I removed my shorts in the hotel, more than half a foot of fabric along the waistband was stained red. That’s right; I had been bitten in the same latitude, only this time five inches closer to my navel. They don’t hesitate, tiger leeches. Finding unprotected flesh, they immediately dig in and suck away.
Whereas brown leech bites fade with time, tiger leech bites sometimes leave permanent marks. I still have both of mine. More irritating is the fact that even after three trips through the system,