New species of leech has roots in South Jersey

An inky black, worm-eating leech discovered in a Salem County yard has been declared a new species, according to Rutgers-Camden researchers.

Haemopis ottorum was named after the Ott family of Alloway, which first brought the creature to Daniel Shain, one of the nation's few leech experts and an associate professor of biology at Rutgers-Camden. Their find is documented in a recent edition of the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

The majority of the world's terrestrial leeches are found in tropical areas, but Haemopis ottorum lives in the swampy, wooded areas and cedar bogs of South Jersey. It is one of only three known North American terrestrial leeches.

And compared with most of the world's leeches, it's a monster.

The first specimen was more than a foot long and grew to about 17 inches. It has a sucker on one end. On the other end, its pointy head has a mouth that stretches wide to swallow its prey whole.

Bill Ott found that first specimen while mowing the lawn on a hot July day in 2003. His wife, Carol, kept the creature alive for months in an aquarium while searching for more information about it online but she couldn't find anything. She did find Shain, and hand-delivered it to his Pennsville home.

"I just was so curious and I knew it was something so different and so cool," said Ott. "We're very inquisitive people anyway. We love nature and anything like that."

Certain they had a new species on their hands, Shain and his students dubbed the leech "Piwi" after a stem cell gene they were studying. Research stalled, however, when the hermaphroditic creature did not reproduce in the lab. More specimens were needed, but it turned out the leech was hard to find.

Beth Wirchansky, then a graduate student, took up the project. Working with other students, she spent three years hunting for more "Piwi" leeches around South Jersey, studying topographical maps to find possible sites.

"Leeches are really fascinating creatures when you start to look at them," said Wirchansky, co-author of the paper with Shain and a May graduate with a master's in biology. "They're extremely complex. They're very diverse and have very interesting life strategies. There's not a lot known about them."

Shain was unavailable for comment Tuesday, said Rutgers-Camden spokeswoman Cathy Donovan. He is in California on an expedition to find the earliest living relative of aquatic worms that secrete tubes.

But in an earlier interview with Donovan, Shain said the new terrestrial leech originated from aquatic leeches in the Great Lakes millions of years ago. It likely traveled from the Midwest, down south, past the Appalachians and up the coast into New Jersey, as a result of glacial ice.

Examples of Haemopis ottorum are on display in the Science Building lobby at Rutgers-Camden until Nov. 1, along with the two other known species of North American terrestrial leeches. The squirmy critters are so playful, they are housed with marbles for recreational use.

Ralph Saunders, a Rutgers-Camden lab technician and a biology senior, takes care of the leeches, feeding them a small slice of night crawler twice a week and checking on them daily.

They are more interesting than taking care of pathogens, said Saunders. Some weigh nearly an ounce. The active creatures like to climb up the sides of their tanks, and a few have escaped over the years.

Carol Ott, who called the first specimen her "pet leech," said she and her family are honored to share their last name with the huge terrestrial leech.

"Not everyone can say they have a new species named after them," Ott said.

By Kum Mulford
Photos: John Ziomek/Courier-Post
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