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I have heard it reported that if you cut the "tail" of a still sucking leech, it will continue to suck endlessly, as it will not become engorged. If this is the case, then it might be possible to take a number of so-cut leeches and stitch them together, human centipede-wise, but going beyond that and
creating a sort of perpetually sucking Ouroboros, full to firmness of bulging pulsing blood circulating through leech mouth and "anus" and mouth and "anus" and so on and so forth for, anecdotal evidence suggests, at least six months.
I've got this terrible feeling of déjà vu
Retirement_20home_20for_20leeches
[calum, Dec 14 2011]
On a "beasts connected" tip, here's Elephants-on-a-rope
Elephants-on-a-rope
do as thumbwax says [calum, Dec 14 2011]
worm_20train
[hippo, Dec 19 2011]
Apologies for self-churn, but this is where I heard about the endless sucking of snipped leeches.
self_20milking_20cow
thanks to mouseposture! [calum, Apr 10 2012]
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Would make a nice bracelet. + |
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Anecdotal you say? Good enough for me. |
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Yay! Definitely! In fact, dead leeches could maybe
be
re-animated for this purpose too. The next question
is, how fast is leech peristalsis? Probably depends on
the ambient temperature. |
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This might be useful as a training exercise for
microsurgeons -- but the idea is more beautiful
without any justification at all. |
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I see a cheap way to build an oil pipeline... |
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One would think that leech on leech predation would already happen if it worked. |
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It does. I've had leeches on me that had other, smaller
leeches sucking them dry. |
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Bonus points for inserting other blood-eaters (e.g. a Vampire Bat) into the chain. |
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Nay, the .5b Christmas garland. Happy holidays, everyone! |
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Now and then adding a jolly Newt would spice up the strand. |
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It'd make a good Hallowe'en wreath. |
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I wonder whether similar plumbing techniques be used to modify a fountain pen, replacing the cartidge, sack, or piston with one of these creatures, providing a reliable and constant source of 'ink' - direct from the writer so to speak - for those longer (and more specialist) documents that require to be so written in an autosanguineous manner. |
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Which leads me to an idea... |
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Until now, I've never encountered a totally
satisfactory fountain-pen-filling mechanism. |
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The concept of blood-pumping organic leech
tubing is intriguing and pretty horrifying, but a
leech ouroboros just takes the cake. |
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Also, possibly useful for blood-drawing. According
to my quick internet research, leech bites aren't
very painful, so if there was some way to make the
inside of a leech sterile of harmful bacteria then
leech-tubing could prove a genuinely viable
alternative to those who like the idea of donating
but hate needles. (I'm sure there's someone else
who is more scared of needles than of being
sucked on by a Frankensteined leech chain, right?
Right?) |
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The question with these is how to keep them
alive over a prolonged period. I doubt the six-
months figure, so one could perhaps keep the
back end of a leech chain unsnipped and engorge
the whole chain with some large amount of
acceptable blood substitute (Nutrient-enriched
saline?) When it comes time to use, snip open the
back of the leech chain and drain the fluid. |
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The flow of the vertebrate blood is into the leech. I'm not sure how much "blowback" there is, but it's not enough to cause a problem for bloodletting in hygienic conditions, so really, i can't see a problem here except that it might take a while to dry. It would have to do so by oxidation and evaporation rather than clotting. |
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nineteenthly, as you are our resident leech expert, I have for you a question: when a leech sucks, does it gulp, or sip, and if it gulps would the gulps themselves (or perhaps any peristalsis) result in the leech (or ouborous leech) bulging or pulsing? Because if it would, then that bulge could be harnessed to create traction, giving rise to the possibility of a leechring driven mass transit system. |
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I'll get round to it [calum]. Just need to fish about
in
the front room to answer your question. |
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[Hippo], now i can't get the song "Love Train" out
of
my head. |
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Right, [calum] i can tell you one thing straight off:
it's unlikely that any animal with a body cavity is
going to do much pulsing on the outside as a result
of peristalsis because the existence of the coelom
results in more efficient movement of gut
contents. Therefore, i imagine pulsations of the
body wall would be inefficient. When i say
"unlikely", i mean that i have a low degree of belief
that that's true which i see as rational. |
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Thank you, nineteenthly. Hm. I shall have to go back to that particular drawingboard. |
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Well, you could skin the leeches and leave their
support systems intact, but i think you'd have
insufficient traction or you'd destroy the leech.
Maybe replace their skin with velcro or something
sticky? They might turn out to be quite sticky
already once you've skinned them. |
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Or just turn the leech inside-out - like a sock. |
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This idea sponsored by Dr Hoffmann. Owner of the biggest leech farm in Europe. |
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//"biggest leech"// - big enough to be used as socks? |
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You only think you're kidding. I've seen some huge leeches
right here in Maine,
like 8-9" long and thicker than my thumb. I'm sure even
bigger ones exist somewhere else. |
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[Hippo], whereas i think that would very probably work it would probably involve temporarily paralysing the leech and it would be a very slippery process. |
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[Alterother], the horse leeches i used to keep were pretty massive but because i was a child, the scale seemed bigger. Those are three hundred millimetres long when extended and mainly terrestrial. Haementeria ghillania is almost half a metre in length, but that's not actually that much bigger than a horse leech, so i'm not very impressed by that fact really. |
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// I'm sure even bigger ones exist somewhere // |
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They do. Go look though the window of the Accounts Department when they think no humans are around, and take their costumes off for a bit. |
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Actually, half a meter is considerably larger than 300mm,
at least to my mind. 50cm is almost 20"; that's one fuckin'
huge leech. Definitely big enough to use as a sock or a
festive holiday decoration. |
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// a festive holiday decoration // |
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Strange festivals you must have… presumaby a Wicker Man and
blood sacrifices are included? |
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Less than twice as long. Presumably the minimum
leech sock size is a smidge longer than the minimum
human foot size. |
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// Strange festivals you must have… presumaby a Wicker
Man and blood sacrifices are included? // |
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Not anymore. Anyway, I didn't say it was _my_ holiday, did
I? |
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Instead of merely insideouting the leech for use as a sock, you could stitch two together, such that they form a leech doughnut, which could suck its way up your foot and well-turned ankle, thus releiving you of the tedium of being actively involved in the donning of your socks. |
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While conveniently exsanguinating your lower leg at the
same time. Practical _and_ fun! |
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How about leeches which wrap themselves around one's limbs and torso Boa constrictor style, thus removing the need to be involved in getting dressed at all? |
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As long as nobody even thinks of using one of these as a contraceptive sleeve device... |
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