Vampires get all the attention at this time of year, but bloodthirsty leeches, insects and birds are just as compelling — and they’re real. Leeches feeding on a homemade “blood sausage,” made from cow ...

The medium-sized leech can move in an S-shape to swim and crawl like an inchworm on dry land, researchers said. Photo by 杨 震 via Unsplash For months, researchers returned to a single cave in southern ...

National Geographic Ultimate Explorer correspondent Nick Baker enters the quirky world of medicine’s oldest practitioners — the leech and the fly — in a surreal journey through time and place to ...

There has long been anecdotal evidence of the wormy creatures taking to the air, but videos recorded in Madagascar at last prove the animals’ acrobatics. By Veronique Greenwood Veronique Greenwood ...

Smithsonian Curator Anna Phillips is on a quest to make leeches less repulsive to the public. Erin I. Garcia de Jesus Smithsonian Curator Anna Phillips wants people to be less scared of blood-sucking ...

A chance video by a grad student relishing her first big field trip might help resolve an argument that’s raged among biologists for more than a century. The question: Can leeches jump? Yes, at least ...

For centuries, observers have told tales of leeches leaping through the air in pursuit of their next meal—with written records of the creatures’ gravity-defying feats dating as far back as the 14th ...

It has been a big year for leeches. A new species was discovered near Washington and announced in August by Anna Phillips, who may have the world’s best job title: curator of parasitic worms at the ...