We Hate To Tell You This, But Some Leeches Can Jump

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

Generally, we at Short Wave are open-minded to the creepies and the crawlies, but even we must admit that leeches are already the stuff of nightmares. They lurk in water. They drink blood. There are over 800 different species of them. And now, as scientists have confirmed ... at least some of them can jump!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message come from SAP Concur, a leading brand for integrated travel expense and invoice management solutions.
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0:17.0	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:21.0	Hey, shortwaivers, Regina Barbara here, and today I'm joined by producer Hannah Chin
0:26.0	who's on the pod for the first time.
0:28.0	Hi Gina, welcome.
0:29.0	Thank you.
0:30.0	They are here to grace our short waivers with a story about leeches and Hannah to be honest
0:34.8	When I think about leeches I think about like old-timey doctors using them to treat illnesses
0:40.6	Yeah, that's a pretty common conception. There's actually this famous story about
0:45.9	someone that you might be familiar with. I believe that George Washington when he
0:50.8	was dying had a giant quantity of leeches, like a hundred,
0:55.0	two hundred, maybe more leeches I don't remember on him at the time and that surely
1:02.1	didn't help matters.
1:04.0	Yeah, I don't think anybody's gotten better from having a hundred or two hundred features on that.
1:10.0	What? Like, I definitely know George Washington. I didn't know this story though.
1:14.4	Yeah, well that's Michael Tesla. He's an evolutionary biologist who specializes in these
1:20.5	creepy crawleys, aka a leech expert.
1:24.0	Okay, so other than the fact that some of them witnessed the death of our first president,
1:29.0	can you just run through some of the basics we know about them for me.
1:33.0	Yeah, so there's over 800 known species of these little guys.
1:37.0	Wow.
	...

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