As we tidy away the Dracula capes and glow-in-the-dark plastic fangs for another winter, one notorious blood sucker has had a ...

Find out how medicinal leeches are reclaiming a place in modern surgery and therapy, offering unique healing benefits.

Using leeches to suck the blood out of a person might sound medieval, but it’s actually a medicinal practice still used today at many trauma hospitals. Though only used in a handful of cases, the ...

Twenty have hatched in a captive-breeding programme at the Highland Wildlife Park at Kincraig, near Aviemore. They are the ...

Medicinal leeches, once common in the UK, have seen a resurgence, with London's zoo successfully breeding them in captivity for the first time. Despite past exploitation, their role in modern medicine ...

Buglife conservation director Craig Macadam added: "Medicinal leeches have an important place in our medical history but are now one of the rarest invertebrates in Scotland. "The success of the ...

rarity and changing medical treatments. Leeches made a medical comeback as “hirudotherapy”, starting in the 1960s and widely used since the 1980s. Researchers have found over 100 substances in ...

Once widespread in the UK, the medicinal leech is now rare due mainly to habitat loss and historic collecting for medical use. In Ireland, the leech was driven to extinction in the 19th century ...

Once widespread in the UK, the medicinal leech is now rare due mainly to habitat loss and historic collecting for medical use. In Ireland, the leech was driven to extinction in the 19th century. Their ...