The ponds at Newborough Forest look fairly unremarkable at a glance but a blood-sucking creature lies below.
The beauty spot is full of wildlife, from dragonflies, lizards and a host of insects but many of the man-made pools in Anglesey are home to a creature that seems incredibly frightening, Wales Online.
It has 300 teeth, 10 eyes, 32 brains and nine pairs of testicles, and a taste for human blood. Nature goers are warned of its presence, with a sign at one pond stating: “Beware the blood suckers”.
However, although they might appear to be the stuff of nightmares, the reality is these creatures are not quite as scary as they sound.
Despite their bite, the medicinal leech is completely harmless, beyond some painless bleeding.
Newborough Forest has long been one of the few sites British shores where you can find leeches.
But their habitat is starting to shrink, with ponds beginning to silt up and vegetation starting to encroach upon them.
Work has started to re-profile the ponds over the past three years in an attempt to safeguard the leeches and other rare species.
The EU-funded Sands of LIFE (SoL) project work alongside the Natural Resources Wales land management team to try and expand the biodiversity of the area.
“Some species were in danger of disappearing as the pools filled up,” said SoL project manager Kathryn Hewytt. “By enlarging the ponds, removing invasive alien species and old conifer stumps, and scraping back the edges to expose sand, we will be able to manage these areas to maximise biodiversity”.
Leeches are actually unlikely to target humans and are much more likely to target other animals, including pets.
An information board at the forest explains: “They are very rare because most people don’t want them sucking their blood anymore. Our leeches are fit and healthy because they have a good bit of horse blood from when the horses go into the ponds for a drink. “This doesn’t hurt the horses but it does wonders for our leeches!”
Potential victims include dogs who can’t resist a dip in the ponds but this is believed to be harming the survival hopes of leech’s.
Their flea and worming treatments entering leech habitats are thought to have been partly responsible for decimation of leech populations since the 1970s, and conservationists at Newborough fear their efforts could be undone by such freshly dosed canines.
A social media plea from the Sands of LIFE project last week read: “Veterinary flea treatments are now known to cause water pollution and kill off rare invertebrates like leeches. So please don’t let your dog play in pools on the dunes.”
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