Leeches

Leeches are one of my least favorite aspects of doing fieldwork in tropical forests. After snakes.  A new record for leech encounters was recently set while looking for a place to run an inventory transect in the Ngoc Linh Nature Reserve in Vietnam. The ground was boiling with them. [NOTE: I pulled off about 30-40 leeches, and two especially tenacious ones made it back to the guest house in my boot].