Perhaps they are the same species and this type of leech has not changed for many millions of years. Genetic typing can show precisely how closely related a leech from Europe is to one from Utah. The leeches Hovingh sends to Slovenia may help answer those questions. "The question is, has this leech species been around for 200 million years, and they are found in these continents because of continental drift?" he asked.Īre they truly the same species? Are there subspecies that have developed because of the millennia that populations have spent away from each other? Are they entirely different species that happen to look and act alike? They are found in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas - populations separated from each other by thousands of miles of salt water. Genetically, they may be the most interesting leeches. "These stick-in-the-straw leeches are probably more primitive," he said. Suddenly, Hovingh finds a tiny, gray leech hanging onto a rock - an example of Helobdella stagnalis. Everything else in the stream is just habitat, in their view. The story leads him to reflect on aquatic biologists. "I thought all the leeches were in Washington," one of the feds cracked. They asked him what he was doing out in the wilds and he replied he was looking for leeches. Once he was searching in a stream when he met up with two biologists working for a federal agency. "There could be up to a dozen leeches in each cocoon," he said. It is a leech cocoon, where eggs are developing. He turns up a whitish lump attached to the underside of a rock. If you get beyond basic squeamishness, leeches are interesting creatures. Other vertebrates like the amphibians that Hovingh loves are ignored.Īnd where does it leave lower forms like muscles, insects, crabs and leeches? "Invertebrates consist of over 99 percent of animal life - certainly they get a lot less than 1 percent of the attention," he said. In fact, only a few game animals get most of the biological work: deer, elk, trout.
All the focus in wildlife management is vertebrate," he said. "There's too little attention paid to all invertebrates. They deserve investigation, Hovingh says, but in this country they aren't the focus of much natural history research. In a strange way, he muses, they can be considered as living at the top of a food chain, sort of an invertebrate cougar. "So, in line with the salamander studies, I noticed these great big leeches that ate other critters whole." "In some of these ponds the leeches were very abundant," he said. Hovingh became interested in leeches in the 1980s when he was in the Uinta Mountains studying salamander distribution. All the leeches he collects here will be pickled and mailed to biologist Boris Sket of the University of Ljubljana, Solvenia, who is making genetic studies of leeches from around the world. Wearing thongs and a floppy hat, he is splashing through streams near Kimball Junction to assist with purely scientific studies. If so, they may find previously unimagined uses for it.īut today he isn't looking for cures. "What we're now looking at is the specificity of the enzyme." Hovingh and fellow scientists would like to know whether there are other molecules besides hyaluron acid that it dissolves. "It may break down tissue and make blood flow fast," he added. This is a material that breaks down the structure of hyaluron acid. He is also interested in discovering secrets of the hyaluronidase produced by leeches. Depending on their species, there's at least three different anticoagulants coming out of the leech." Some of his leech research has medical applications: "In their little heads they have quite a pharmaceutical company. Hovingh is a biologist who works at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Salt Lake City. In certain Utah springs, you can find "big ones, around 24 inches long when they're stretched out." Some in the Colorado River eat small fish.
"See, this guy will live on snails, other worms, other leeches, crustaceans," he said. They are fine examples of Erpobdella dubia, one of Utah's largest leech species. Several dark things are moving across the rock, stretching, pulling themselves into lines about 3 inches long. He stops, turns it over and finds one on it."These are the kind that eat its prey whole," he said, holding out the glistening rock. Walking with the current, thongs on his feet, Hovingh fishes up a rock the size of two fists. The swift current burbles between browned grasses, not yet revived by spring growth. He is pulling up rocks from the bottom of the stream and inspecting them. With a "cheep-cheep cheeep!" a water ouzel flashes past Peter Hovingh, who is standing, bent over, up to his knees in a swift, clear stream.
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