What Are the Natural Enemies of Leeches? How to Prevent Leech Bites
The leech, also known as the bloodsucker, is an animal that lives by sucking blood, and it is easily encountered in damp, warm areas. Unlike other animals, the leech will actively attack, attaching itself to a person's body, and you feel no pain at all when bitten. So what are the natural enemies of leeches?How to prevent its bites?
I. What are the natural enemies of leeches?
1. Ants
Ants appear because they are attracted by the smell of bait, or they are brought in with the soil. Ants mainly harm leeches that are laying eggs and their egg cocoons.
2. Rats
Rats are the main natural enemy of leeches, often swallowing leeches in large numbers, especially when leeches are active on the shore, where they lose their defensive ability and are eaten by rats.
3. Snakes and water centipedes
Snakes and water centipedes can sometimes swallow leeches.
II. How to prevent being bitten by leeches?
When surviving or exploring in the wild, you need to guard against leeches. Leeches are also called bloodsuckers, and there are extremely many leeches in the jungle. Although this animal does not transmit diseases or immediately kill people, it sucks a lot of blood, weakens a person's physical strength, and the bite site often keeps bleeding, making infection easy. There are many kinds of leeches, including land leeches that grow in shady, damp, low-lying forest grasslands, water leeches that grow in swamps and ponds, and parasitic leeches that grow in mountain streams and springs (the larvae are white and not easy to find with the naked eye). Leeches suck a large amount of blood, and can suck blood equivalent to 2 to 10 times their body weight. At the same time, because leech saliva has an anesthetic and anticoagulant effect, people often feel nothing while it is sucking blood, and when it leaves after eating its fill, the wound still keeps bleeding, often causing infection, inflammation and ulceration.
When walking in tropical jungles, wear long pants and tuck the socks over the outside of the pant legs to prevent leeches from attaching to the body. While moving, you should often check whether any leeches have crawled onto your feet. If you apply some soap or mosquito repellent oil to the surface of your shoes, it can prevent leeches from crawling up. The effective time of one application is about 4 to 8 hours. In addition, leeches and snakes also dare not approach the smell of raw garlic, and applying garlic juice to shoes, socks and pant cuffs can also have the effect of repelling leeches.
The camping place should be chosen in a relatively dry place with not much grass, and do not camp by a lake, river or stream.
When resting, often check the body for leech bites, and if there are leeches, remove them promptly.
When crossing rivers or streams where there are leeches, tighten the pant legs, and after coming ashore, check whether any leeches are attached.
Try to drink boiled water, and do not drink water with parasitic leeches. Tiny young leeches are not easy to find, and after being swallowed they will parasitize in places such as the respiratory tract, esophagus and urethra.
When these “vampires” bite you, you must never pull them off with your hands; that is a very foolish thing to do. Because a leech has two suckers, it is very likely that you will do the opposite and make it suck even tighter. At the same time, pulling hard will make its mouthparts break off under the skin, causing infection.
There are many ways to get a leech off. You can pat your arm, thigh or other bitten area, and this shaking will make the leech fall off.
Applying strong salt water to the leech's body is a common method. Besides that, you can also apply soapy water, tobacco oil, alcohol, vinegar and so on to the leech's body. Very soon, the leech will drop to the ground.