• seth@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’ve only ever gotten one leech from wading; the times I’ve had the most leeches (about half a dozen usually) were just from walking on forest trails on misty/foggy/light rain days, and tall grass trails right beside the forest edge. In a steady drizzle if you look closely you see them posted up on trails stretching their little proboscides up and flop around like a slow version of those inflatable airdancers used to advertise car dealerships and those seasonal tax prep or title loan businesses that pop up in old run-down filling station buildings.

      That’s how I learned to tuck my hiking pants into my socks, and also to never wear shorts.

      • BreadOven@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Once I was in some rock pool, wearing some old converse with holes in them because of the rocks.

        I must have stepped in a nest or something, because when I took the shoes off I had like 50 tiny (like rice-sized) leeches on one of my feet.

        Thankfully they came off easily.

        • seth@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Good to catch them early! Once they were half engorged I couldn’t get a grip on them and my hiking pals and I were trying to get them off by touching them with a hot lighter (like with ticks) and it wasn’t working. An old lady walking the other direction giggled as she was passing us and came up and showed me the quick way to get them off - just push your thumb nail-down against your skin and slide against their mouth end and they just kind of release and fall off. When they’re stuck on also with their back suckers you just do it to that end too. Thin trails of blood seepage for like half an hour before it clots up, no pain whatsoever. After a few bites I wasn’t afraid of them anymore.

          • BreadOven@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Thankfully I don’t think I’ve had any that attached. I think salt also works to get them off/dry them out?

            • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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              3 months ago

              Don’t use salt, fire or lighters on leeches. The leech is attached, gave you a light anesthetic, punched a hole through your skin to a blood vessel and now drinking the blood by sucking through the hole. When you use salt or fire in the leech, you’re shocking it with extreme pain which makes it vomit through the hole it’s sucking on … basically puking into your body. This has the danger of causing an infection or even a reaction to whatever was in the leech stuff that went back into your body.

              Carefully and slowly pinching and nudging them is the safest way to get them off.

              • BreadOven@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Interesting. Good to know. I haven’t removed one with salt in decades probably, but I will remember this. Thanks.

      • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        stretching their little proboscides up and flop around like a slow version of those inflatable airdancers used to advertise car dealerships

        Thank you for this vivid description. Yet another reason for me to tuck my pants into my socks.

        • seth@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          That’s a cool tip I will try out. Ticks are one of the only animals that really scare me, bc the ones I’m usually around transmit Lyme and RMSF.

    • blackstampede@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      How many leeches are this guy’s breeches?

      This guys breeches are probably made out of several thousand leeches, at a minimum.

    • Pantherina@feddit.de
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      3 months ago

      Hahaha this. Swamps are so full of weird slimy and flying life. They are great, really great. But not for living in it XD

  • Sibbo@sopuli.xyz
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    3 months ago

    So he is saying that getting drops of swamp water up your butt is totally safe? Or does he have a sphincter with an IP6 rating?

  • P34C0CK@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    This river can kill you 1,000 ways.

    l can handle it. The only thing I’m afraid of is the candiru acu.

    It’s a tiny little catfish. It swims up into your urethra, spreads its little spines, and refuses to budge.

    You have to cut it out.

    That’s it I’m going back to L.A.!

    • FarFarAway@startrek.website
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      3 months ago

      it makes you feel better, the fish has only been documented doing this once in 1997, and it could have been a hoax

      Originally I thought the fish only went up there if you peed in the water, but that too seems questionable…

      But it does seem to like swimming up women’s hooha’s. Just don’t be a woman and you’ll be fine!

    • rutellthesinful@kbin.social
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      3 months ago

      the candiru acu is actually the common name for cetopsis candiru

      the fish that swims up where it shouldn’t is the vandellia cirrhosa

      • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 months ago

        Yeah, I’d be more worried about the brain eating amoebas in the warm stagnant water.

        Maybe it’s safe if you keep your head out of the water and your fingers out of your nose. Dunno.

  • JimmyBigSausage@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    As a desert dweller, this photo feels like a space of unknown wet horror. Glad he is happy but hard pass here.

  • go $fsck yourself@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    “Swamps are great!” Says man that has the privilege of not getting horrific reactions to the thousands of bug bites.

  • RatBin@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    wetlands are some of the best place to be if you don’t mind the mud and the water. You get to see snakes, frogs, all that thrives in the water, insects, plants that never run out of water with these turgid leaves and flowers.

  • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Yeah, swamps are great. I spent a week in a burning, alligator-infested swamp, and it beats the hell out of being around other people.

    • fetter@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Picked up d2 again randomly last night. Just got through kurast and am about to bash mephs soulstone.

      Games so effing good after all these years.