A New Bloodsucking Leech Species Found Hiding Outside Washington, D.C.
Smithsonian researcher Anna Phillips led the recent discovery of the new medicinal species. Its superficial similarities to a North American leech species helped prevent its detection before.
With an olive-green body encasing three jaws, each lined with more than 50 teeth, it looks like a cigarette-sized relative of the skin-crawling creature from the Alien films. Actually, it's far less sinister: a new species of a bloodsucking leech.
Anna Phillips, the curator of in almost their own backyard.
