So a few days ago two of the people I'm working with got to go fly in a small airplane and get to some lakes inaccessible by road. Cool, right? Cool until they dropped their traps and came back with leeches as well as fish. They brought two of them back to the lab, too. I was and continue to be disgusted that we have two leeches, two GIANT leeches in a tupperware tub in one corner of the lab. Of course, being somewhat of a science geek (heh), I can't help but be weirdly fascinated as well. Mostly because they just disgust me so much, but... you know. Sometimes you're just drawn to the things that make you the most queasy. And so I give you, Portrait of Leeches. I shudder to think how close I was to make this image, it's barely cropped. It's funny how being behind a lens can feel like protection even when it's not at all, especially when it comes to something like leeches! As if they wouldn't latch onto me either way. Looking at my images, I definitely got closer and closer as I was taking the images. Maybe it seemed so much less real through the lens, or I forgot all about their blood-sucking tendencies while focusing more on how their little bodies were contorting and moving and waving in the weirdest ways. It's really amazing how invertebrates can contort themselves.
1 comment:
And to think that these little critters are sometimes used as a perscribed medical treatment. Just night-before-last, Ellen and I were watching the "African Queen" -- Bogard and Hepburn -- where he had to get into the water to pull the boat through the reeds. And when he get back in the boat, there are bunches of leeches attached to him. Maybe I shouldn't have told you about that. hmmmmmmm
P'taker
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